Ranking President's Economic Growth Performances, 1901 to Today

Most of the time, presidents have limited impact on the economy and their performance is dictated by where in the business cycle they take office. However, pundits keep comparing them, so here is a list.

This list ranks the growth in annualized Real GDP between the year of taking office and the year of leaving office of all the presidents from 1901 to the present. (The exception is Obama where only the three years he has been in office are used.)

For cases where the president died in office, it lists the vice president that finished out that term. In each case, these vice presidents went on the win an election on their own. Four of the top five on this list are Democrats. Four of the bottom five are Republicans.

1. DemocratRoosevelt/Truman1933 to 194910.21%
2. DemocratTruman1949 to 19536.21%
3. Republican Harding/Coolidge1921 to 19255.95%
4. DemocratKennedy/Johnson1961 to 19655.66%
5. DemocratJohnson1965 to 19694.24%
6. Republican Coolidge1925 to 19293.64%
7. Democrat Clinton1993 to 20013.64%
8. Republican Reagan1981 to 19893.50%
9. Republican Taft1909 to 19133.23%
10. Republican Nixon/Ford1969 to 19772.95%
11. Democrat Carter1977 to 19812.72%
12. Republican Eisenhower1953 to 19612.67%
13. DemocratObama2009 to 20112.38%
14. Republican Theodore Roosevelt1901 to 19092.15%
15. Republican George Bush1989 to 19931.96%
16. Democrat Wilson1913 to 19211.43%
17. Republican George W. Bush2001 to 20091.42%
18. Republican Hoover1929 to 1933-7.46%