Job Creation Under Democratic Presidents Roughly Double That Of GOP: Report

He'll Be Better For Job Creation, History Says

Democrats sure know how to create jobs, if recent history is any indication.

Since John F. Kennedy was elected president in 1961, job growth under Democratic presidents has outnumbered that under Republicans by a nearly 2-to-1 margin, according to a Bloomberg Government analysis. During that period, non-government payrolls grew by almost 42 million jobs under Democratic presidents, compared to 24 million when a Republican party member was in power.

The pattern seems to be holding true under President Obama. During the first three years and two months of his presidency, the country hasn't lost nearly as many jobs as during that same first period of his predecessor, according to an analysis from left-leaning and Nobel Prize winning economist Paul Krugman. In April, the total number of private sector jobs finally surpassed that which existed when Obama took office in January 2009, according to the Bloomberg Government report.

Obama's re-election is far from guaranteed. No U.S. president has won re-election since World War II with an unemployment rate above 6 percent on Election Day, with the sole exception of Ronald Reagan, who faced a jobless rate of 7.2 percent on Election Day 1984, according to a separate Bloomberg report.

Even that's significantly lower than the 8.1 percent unemployment rate the nation is struggling with today. And while the jobless rate did fall in April, that decline was in part due to job-seekers giving up their search and dropping out of the workforce.

Additionally, the rich have actually snapped up a greater share of wealth under Obama than under George W. Bush, further boosting the income gap. Wall Street firms had also reaped more profits under Obama as of November than under the entirety of the Bush presidency.

Before You Go

Popular in the Community

Close

What's Hot