Here's an interesting set of data I just came across on the Huffington Post (yeah, yeah, librul bias, whatever--the data's sourced from The Bureau of Labor Statistics and the numbers appear legit):

Quote :

"No Republican President -- not Eisenhower, not Nixon, not Reagan, not Bush -- has ever created more jobs, or created jobs at a faster rate, than his Democratic predecessor. It's not even close. The contrast has been especially stark over the past 16 years, when 23.1 million jobs were created under Clinton and less than 5 million were created under Bush. On average, job growth under Democrats is more than twice that under Republicans. Whatever benchmark you use, the difference is dramatic. Since Truman was elected in 1948, 53.2 million new jobs were created during the 24 years when Democrats held The White House, and 38.3 million were created during the 36 years of Republican administrations. Check it out for yourself: Millions of Jobs Added Truman 1949 -1952 5.2 Eisenhower 1953 - 1956 2.7 Eisenhower 1957 - 1960 0.8 Kennedy/Johnson 1961 - 1964 5.7 Johnson 1965 - 1968 9.8 Nixon 1969 - 1972 6.1 Nixon/Ford 1972 - 1976 5.2 Carter 1977 - 1980 10.4 Reagan 1981 - 1984 5.2 Reagan 1985 - 1988 10.8 Bush 1989 - 1992 2.5 Clinton 1993 - 1996 11.6 Clinton 1997 - 2000 11.5 Bush 2001 - 2004 (0.1) Bush 2005 - 2008 5.1 Of course, business cycles aren't timed to coincide with presidential inaugurals. But after 60 years it's hard to argue that the Democratic presidents are just lucky."

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-fiderer/the-simple-arithmetic-of_b_124510.html

Based on those numbers, it looks like the average annual increase in jobs under Democrats in the White House has been about 2.22 million per year. Under Republicans, it's been 1.06 million per year--less than half the growth under Democrats.

The data is for the entirety of the past 60 years, so it seems to me that it should at least be a good indication of how things have gone in the modern era. Obviously the president doesn't singlehandedly just create or destroy job growth at his choosing. Nevertheless--and I'm no economics expert, so I can't offer much in the way of interpretation--it seems to me, a lay person, that the Democratic party has, in the very least, been twice as lucky as the Republicans for sixty straight years.

Any thoughts? I'd be interested to hear some thoughts from The Soap Box on this, and certainly from the economics experts around here.

9/7/2008 11:44:33 AM

Because when the economy goes bad, democrats do a better job of guilting americans into voting for them. There is no luck involved. People simply don't trust republicans in bad economic times (much to the chagrin of republican-dominated economics departments).

Having inherited economies that have hit bottom, the only place for jobs to go is up.

9/7/2008 12:20:30 PM

Does this include government jobs?

I imagine Democrats enlarging the government would open up a lot of jobs. it also means increased taxes to pay for those jobs though.


Its not really true anymore that democrats are the only ones bloating the government but a few years ago when this data was taken it was.

9/7/2008 12:30:28 PM

"Such a large historical gap in economic performance between the two parties is rather surprising, because presidents have limited leverage over the nation’s economy. Most economists will tell you that Federal Reserve policy and oil prices, to name just two influences, are far more powerful than fiscal policy."

Most economists will also tell you that Presidents don't even control fiscal policy. Here in the United States we have three branches of government. The Presidency is one of them. Then there is what is called the Congress. They have a say, too. Then there are external events besides fiscal policy and monetary policy and oil prices that affect the economy and that are beyond the President's control. Demographics. Cultural trends. Technology. None of these are controlled by the President. There's also war. You can argue the President controls whether we go to war, but I'd argue you'd want to factor in war separately if you want to assess the quality of a President's economic policies.
http://cafehayek.typepad.com/hayek/2008/09/blinded-by-part.html

I would similarly point out that Clinton enjoyed a democrat-run congress for two lack-luster years. The years of explosive growth in jobs and compensation took place during the six years after a republican dominated congress was imposed upon the Clinton white house. This brings up the Libertarian observation that it seems logical for the country to perform best with a Republican dominated Congress, for fiscal responsibility and low regulatory burdens, and a Democrat controlled White House to prevent foreign entanglements. While Clinton became involved in more than his share of wars, he was sensible enough to keep them small.

9/7/2008 1:07:30 PM

From one of my posts in another thread:

Quote :

"Like with any statistical analysis, you cannot suggest correlation translates to causation without an underlying economic reasoning. If you can suggest, for instance, that raising corporate and capital gains taxes actually increases economic activity, then this analysis might have merit. But since there is no apparent economic reasoning to support the data analysis, you cannot validly assert that democratic policies are better for the economy. This is no different from suggesting that stock returns are higher during the week of a full moon simply because there exist a correlation."

Additionally, there are many more variables that are not taken into account in the above analysis. For example, most fiscal policies have often-unknown lag times, so it can be quite difficult to determine under which administration the costs or benefits of fiscal policies lie.

9/7/2008 1:13:38 PM

So is this article arguing that the economy under Carter was stronger than it was under either Nixon or Reagen? That the economy was bad in the 50's under Eisenhower? What's the point of this article? Raw job growth is completely meaningless with out any context, such as overall unemployment, etc.

Correlation doesn't equal causation. Statistics 101.

9/7/2008 1:17:54 PM

well, unemployment is the highest it has been in 5 years as of the news today

9/7/2008 3:57:50 PM

Well then, bring back the Republican Congress. Afterall, the Democrats come into Congress and within two years, bam, recession. Imagine that.

9/7/2008 4:38:40 PM

Well then, bring back the Republican Congress. Afterall, the Democrats come into Congress and within two years, bam, recession. Imagine that.

9/7/2008 4:42:41 PM

democrats hate america and are the reason for this housing problem

9/7/2008 7:41:15 PM

good thing they run 1/3 of the gov't currently

9/7/2008 8:01:54 PM

Correlation does not equal causation in this instance IMO

Neither party is philosophically appealing to me, that is a much bigger concern than this particular track record over the past few decades.

9/7/2008 9:20:41 PM