I see a meme going around suggesting that only Democratic presidents create jobs, but it's pretty misleading. As much as I prefer not to give Trump credit for anything, job creation was fine on his watch. It's not fair to charge him with the pandemic collapse, nor to give Biden credit for all the gains since then. You really need to acknowledge a pandemic "time-out," which ends Trump's record in March 2020 and starts Biden's two years later. Here's what that looks like:
This isn't "official," but it's a more reasonable look at what really happened to the economy after adjusting for the pandemic. Basically, everyone is about the same except for Clinton, the employment GOAT among recent presidents, and George W. Bush, the goat among recent presidents.
So, what exactly did you do -- cut out the recession periods or every month which had cuts to jobs??? Would you do this -- take out the negative results -- from any other data set to claim a more accurate narrative?
I suppose the next adjustment to the base stats would consider if an administration came in with a headwind or a tailwind.
Bush II and Trump both came in with good economies and left with bad economies. So did Bush 1, and Nixon/Ford. Johnson, Clinton, Obama all came in with shit economies and left good economies, and an argument can be made that Carter left better than he got, too.
Carter's most consequential decision was to hire Paul Volcker as fed chair and to support his massive increase in interest rates that cured inflation for the next 40 years. Volcker (and thus Carter) was more responsible for Reagan's economic success than anything Reagan did.
Bobby conveniently left out Reagan. If we're only talking about comparing the economy you came in with with the one you're going out with, that is.
If we're being fair and adjusting for recessions that aren't that president's fault, then the blame for the Great Recession (which tanks Bush 2's numbers, and as someone who came of age during his presidency he ranks near the top of my personal "this guy can fuck off" list) has to be spread between Reagan, Bush 1, and Clinton as well. They're the ones that presided over the policies that led to the financial regime that created the financial bubble and succeeding crisis.
Most of it is "unfair" (see my comment below). But while foresight and prudent, farsighted stewardship aren't always easy to come by in government, the deep forces you allude to were hardly uncheckable during W. Bush's tenure. Politically it would have been difficult—but from a policy perspective hardly impossible—to take an unflinching look at the US economy in the wake of 911 and say: We've got some growing imbalances we should probably address. Things like more stringent mortgage underwriting requirements; tougher enforcement of financial fraud; stricter financial sector regulation; an honest look at the "too big to fail" phenomenon—none of these would have required breaking the laws of physics to implement. And there absolutely were people voicing concerns about these dangers years before that recession arrived. It's not as if nobody foresaw trouble was on the way. Needless to say, strengthening the safety net and creating more countercyclical automaticity (to mitigate the next, inevitable downturn) likewise wasn't impossible.
W. Bush really was a very shitty president with a very poor grasp of public policy.
Irrational exuberance anyone?
Pretty sure that nothing Reagan, Bush 1 and Clinton did had anything to do with the Great Recession. This is pretty much irrefutable given Greenspan's repeated claims of irrational exuberance but choice not to do anything about it. His commitment to Randian philosophy precluded him from having a rational response. If instead he modestly raised interest rates and more importantly used the feds authority banking regulatory authority to impose reasoanble credit standards on banks, the great recession could have been easily prevented. Unfortunately the man had complete shit for brains as also seen by his torpedoing Clinton's desire to mover the social security trust fund into conservative S&P500 stocks. If that had happened, the entire social security problem would have been completely solved. Why democrat presidents insist on retaining grossly incompetent republican fed chairs is beyond me.
There's an entire set of Wikipedia articles on Glass-Steagall, its repeal in 1999, and how it helped lead to the Great Recession.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aftermath_of_the_repeal_of_the_Glass%E2%80%93Steagall_Act
Reagan also de-regulated the financial sector to various degrees. Admittedly, I couldn't find anything concrete about Bush 1's term in a quick search so maybe he did nothing.
Bush 2 continued the deregulation that led to the disaster, of course, and I don't disagree with Jasper above that different executive actions (and different legislation) might have alleviated or averted the crisis. But I'm also not convinced that a President Gore wouldn't have deregulated the financial sector at least a little, and even less convinced that he would've pushed for and signed more regulation for the financial sector. Those interests exert enormous influence on the levers of power.
The real story is that the President generally does not have all TOO much to do with how many jobs are created or how the economy as a whole does while he happens to be in office. Even though people do it all the time, weighing them as leaders or something on that basis is unfair and unilluminating.
Presidents do in fact have significant impacts on those numbers through their choice of competent or incompetent economic policies.
These numbers aren't adjusted for population growth. Bill Clinton's numbers look all the more impressive when you consider he became president of a country with about 80 million fewer people than currently.
Demographics play a role too--boomers were still booming then.
Fair. The population was younger then.
80 million more people is irrelevant. Adult (or working age) population growth numbers would be the relevant statistic.
...do you think they're unrelated?
Troll harder.
It's not fair to charge him with the pandemic collapse, nor to give Biden credit for everything since then. You really need to acknowledge a pandemic "time-out,"
None of it's fair. It's not fair that Reagan took office just as a blistering money tightening policy was emphatically wringing inflation out of the economy; it's not fair that George H. W. Bush took office in the seventh year of an expansion; it's not fair that Bill Clinton took office just as the internet was being invented and Chinese reforms were taking off; it's not fair that Obama took office in the aftermath of the sharpest downturn since 1932; it's not fair that Joe Biden arrived amid an inflation-inducing supply chain clusterfuck. And so on.
Kevin, as you generally adjust for inflation, can’t you attempt something similar here? For example, how many jobs were added as a percent of the working population?
Why does Biden's "time out" end a year into his tenure? If we're going to excuse situations outside one's control, how about a global inflation crisis caused by COVID throughout 2022 and most of 2023 and the FED trying to tank employment?
Trump's first three years were with a booming global economy and the Fed keeping rates at essentially zero. Biden's second and third year come with a global economic crisis and the Fed jacking rates repeatedly so no one can afford a home.
And yet Biden's numbers under constant economic crisis are better than Trump's numbers under fair skies and full sails.
Just lopping off a year here or there 'cause things are bad is random. Bush II had the global Great Recession so we can excuse the end of 2008! Bush I had the Iraq War and a recession, so his numbers should be bumped up! Darn that Nixon/Ford sure had to deal with inflation and a global oil crisis, so let's puff up their record!
Yes, not all jobs are the result of the president. But the fact is under Trump the global economy was booming and he did pretty good and around the global average. Under Biden the global economy hit a brick wall of COVID, inflation stabbed it while it was recovering, and the United States far outpaced the rest of the advanced world in almost every economic measure.
Being a contrarian is nice, but randomly forcing data to meet your contrarian position is not.
"Why does Biden's "time out" end a year into his tenure? " that would have been the correct thing to have done, and would double the number reported for Biden. Instead, Kevin excluded two years, despite the fact full job recovery occurred long before that point.
Evaluating Presidents on this kind of basis is just wrong, for reasons that other commenters have mentioned. Presidents don't personally control the economic cycle.
The evaluation should be done primarily on the basis of policies. What policies have worked and what haven't? Does cutting taxes for the rich increase GDP growth and lead to greater government revenue as Republicans keep claiming? Have Republican policies actually reduced deficits? Was it really safe to deregulate finance and let banks run wild to grant mortgages to anyone who asked? In the past Democrats have assisted in both tax-cutting and deregulation. They controlled the House during the Reagan administration and could have blocked or moderated the tax cuts and the Clinton administration assisted deregulation - the effects of which didn't completely take effect until the Bush II administration. Politicians should be judged on their policies, not current events.
Of course real evaluation of policies will probably always be beyond the ability of the general public and political rhetoric will tend to emphasize personalities and recent economic trends - real or fake. Pundits and bloggers should know better.
"They controlled the House during the Reagan administration " Only by counting all the future republicans.
I wonder what it would look like if you adjusted for population and went back to FDR? Although I see Wikipedia has essentially done that using FRED and, as expected, FDR is the king of job creation (and would have done even better if he had ignored the deficit scolds of his era). Jimmy Carter was surprisingly pretty good at job creation as well but that didn't sit well with Paul Volker. Lets fact it though, at the end of the day, with the notable exception of FDR, presidents don't actually have much effect on job creation.
If a virus arises in China that has the potential of creating a world-wide pandemic and kill millions of Americans, should the Unites States:
A) Attempt to contain the virus in China, or
B) Allow the virus to spread unchecked?
Faced with this question, Trump chose option B. See the James Fallows article linked below.
Drum claims it's not fair to charge Trump with the pandemic collapse. But when China, in a classic failure mode of authoritarian governments, tried to pretend that the virus didn't exist rather than attempting to contain it, Trump assisted with the cover up. There is a good chance that the virus would have escaped from China regardless of what Trump did, but I don't see any good reason not to assign the consequences of the pandemic to Trump in a comparison that doesn't give any other Presidents a pass for the effects of events outside of their control.
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2020/06/how-white-house-coronavirus-response-went-wrong/613591/
"Faced with this question, Trump disastrously chose option B. Fify. There is a reason every virologist end epidemiologist told Trump this was a stupid idea. And they were right. The two nations that imposed travel bans on china, Italy and the USA as expected became the epicenters for covid. By imposing the travel ban (which accomplished nothing for the USA since the majority of virus in the USA had a mutation from Italy) it took off the pressure to do the important things that would actually help, such as make tests available, install a competent CDC director, etc. etc.
Crediting or blaming presidents for everything that goes on during their administration is stupid, but so is voting for a guy who openly intends to end American democracy, so anything we can do to prevent that is good.
I am afraid this is B.S. If it is not fair to credit Biden with the Covid recovery how is it fair to credit Clinton with the Dot Com Boom? That boom was happening completely on its own with no input from the president (which may be why it was short lived--poor old George W...!). The recovery from Covid on the other hand could have been fucked up by e.g. prematurely ending the subsidies. Biden did not do that ("failed to do that" for the GOP). Credit to him!
Pretty sure opening the internet up to commercial use had a huge effect on the dot.com boom (a obviously indicated by the very name). Solving the deficit crisis as pushed by Perot had a huge impact on making financing available to start ups and had a huge impact on the dot.com boom. You are right that there are a lot of things outside of a president's control that impact those numbers. But the claim that presidents have no impact and the specific example you used are both imbecilic. And when every democrat president crushes every republican president but one, then simply the power of averages crushes your argument.
It's utterly absurd to leave out Trump's final 10 month's in office and not leave out Obama's first year in office. Obama didn't cause the worst economic crisis since the great depression already well under way when he assumed office. It is also ridiculous to leave out Biden's 2nd year in office as the jobs lost to covid were fully recovered at the midpoint of that year and the final bit of that full recovery is not automatic or easy. And you shouldn't lump Reagan and GHWBush together. Do it correctly, and you would see that every democrat crushes every republican but Reagan. (GHWBush 478k, Obama 2257, Biden 3652)
Besides all this, it is simply wrong to compare which president "created more jobs." Presidents don't "create" jobs.
It's OK to compare how many jobs "were created" during any particular time, but we should all avoid the media trap of attributing everything that happens during a president's time in office as his or her doing.
Even worse is the ridiculous "first 100 days" nonsense, which ignores the fact that it takes a new president at least 30 days to get his/her new team nominated and confirmed -- even longer if they have a hostile Senate -- and even longer if the outgoing president deliberately obstructed the transition, as Trump certainly did.
" it is simply wrong to compare which president "created more jobs." That is simply completely delusional. Presidents strongly effect the conditions that allow people/companies to create job. Without government built infrastructure.we would have far fewer jobs. Everyone involved in the invention of aircraft was either funded b the government or pursuing government contracts. Everything related to the development of computers was funded by the government. The internet was pretty much exclusively funded or done by government employees. No commercial TV or radio without the government divvying up the spectrum. Without the governments invention of the internet, there would be far less economic activity and far less wealth. Those are simple facts.
Putting your thumb on the scale to create an adjusted figure that feels more accurate is a ridiculous exercise.
Ever hear the one about how a liberal is someone who won't take his own side in an argument?