Biden vs. Trump: Immigration, job growth and inflation compared

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WASHINGTON (NewsNation) — As President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump prepare to present their records and agendas Thursday in the first presidential debate of 2024, some areas will be better highlighted by numbers rather than words.

With Biden nearing the end of his first term in office, he and Trump are now on nearly comparable posting for evaluating the data surrounding their presidencies.

Polling by The Hill/Decision Desk HQ on Wednesday has Trump leading Biden by 1.2 percentage points. 

Independent Robert F. Kennedy Jr. didn’t qualify for the debate and plans to answer questions live from his website. The Hill/Decision Desk HQ shows him polling at a little more than 7%, well behind the major party presumptive nominees.

How do Biden and Trump compare in their immigration policies?

So far during Biden’s term, the U.S. has seen significantly more migrant encounters along the southern border with Mexico compared to Trump’s presidency.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection has reported about 8.1 million migrant encounters along the southern border under Biden’s tenure, compared to just 1.9 million under Trump. Biden also saw 1.8 million so-called gotaways along the border, while his rival saw 517,321.

On Wednesday, the Biden administration announced there has been a 40% decrease in border encounters with migrants in the three weeks since Biden’s order halting asylum processing.

The Border Patrol’s seven-day encounter average is down to under 2,400 per day, marking a 40% decrease since the announcement of asylum restrictions on June 4 and the lowest level since Jan. 17, 2021, according to the Department of Homeland Security.

The decrease is a political boost for Biden, who has faced relentless attacks from the GOP over chaos at the southern border.

How do Biden and Trump compare in managing the economy?

Some data favors Biden’s side, considering the pandemic’s impact on Trump’s metrics.

Biden’s administration saw three times the job growth compared to Trump’s pre-COVID years.

According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor and Statistics (BLS), Biden saw the addition of 15.5 million jobs, compared to 5.2 million under Trump before the pandemic. Notably, Biden saw significant growth in manufacturing jobs, adding 777,000 compared to Trump’s 355,000 pre-COVID.

Both candidates maintained similar average monthly unemployment rates during their terms, with Biden at 4.1%, Trump at 5% and a pre-COVID rate of 3.9%, according to BLS data.

However, inflation saw the biggest difference under Trump, averaging 1.9% during the pandemic and 2.1% pre-COVID. Under Biden, inflation rose to around 5.5% and Americans are still impacted significantly.

These two issues and data are expected to be pivotal in Thursday night’s debate and are likely to influence voters’ decisions on election day.

NewsNation’s digital producer Cassie Buchman and The Hill contributed to this report.