Democratic presidents are better for job creation

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

"If you want to live like a Republican, vote Democratic." – Harry S. Truman

I have posted about this topic from time to time over the years, for example Democratic Presidents Are Always Better For The Economy – Always, and Why elections matter: the economy always does better under Democrats.

Today, Steve Benen has some new studies that add to the weight of historical evidence that Democratic presidents are better for the economy. The Maddow Blog – Dem presidents lead GOP counterparts on jobs:

In recent weeks, we've seen some interesting reports showing that, over the last half-century, Democratic presidents have done far better than Republican presidents when it comes to stock market performance and economic growth. But what about jobs? Bloomberg News reported that the partisan trend works here, too.

During an election-year clash over which U.S. political party has the best prescription for curing unemployment, Democrats can argue that almost two-thirds of private-sector job growth in the past five decades came with them in the White House.

The BGOV Barometer shows that since Democrat John F. Kennedy took office in January 1961, non-government payrolls in the U.S. swelled by almost 42 million jobs under Democrats, compared with 24 million for Republican presidents, according to Labor Department figures.

Democrats hold the edge though they occupied the Oval Office for 23 years since Kennedy's inauguration, compared with 28 for the Republicans. Through April, Democratic presidents accounted for an average of 150,000 additional private-sector paychecks per month over that period, more than double the 71,000 average for Republicans.

Here's a chart I put together, showing private-sector job growth, by president.

The cumulative total — after five Republican presidents and five Democratic presidents — is 42 million to 24 million in Dems' favor.

It's also worth noting George W. Bush is the only modern president to experience a loss in private-sector jobs over his time in office. [Since Herbert Hoover]

President Obama — who inherited the worst economic catastrophe since the Great Depression – has now broken even. The private-sector totals continue to inch higher every month, and will probably be in the Ford or H.W. Bush range by the end of the year. If it wasn't for Tea-Publican austerity measures at the state and local government level dramatically reducing public sector employment, the Obama jobs numbers would be even better.

As former President Bill Clinton said recently, Willard "Mittens" Romney “basically wants to do what [GWB] did before — on steroids,  which will get you the same consequences you got before — on steroids.” Mittens is the second coming of economic catastrophe.