17 Metrics to Watch in the Trump Era

Donald Trump ran for president on a swamp-draining platform of radical change. His success, he implied, won't be measured by conventional yardsticks. So what are the benchmarks? Here, Bloomberg View columnists offer metrics by which to judge the new president. Some are standard, others whimsical. We'll track them in the coming months.

Manufacturing jobs clearly matter a lot to Trump. He talked about them constantly on the campaign trail before the election; he’s been tweeting about them constantly since. So in the coming months and years, we should watch what happens with them -- and the metric to look at is the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ monthly count of payroll employment in the manufacturing sector.