The Party That’s Actually Best for the Economy
Many analyses look at which party is best for the economy. A study from the National Bureau of Economic Research found that Democratic presidents since World War II have performed much better than Republicans. On average, Democratic presidents grew the economy by 4.4% each year versus 2.5% for Republicans.
A study by Princeton University economists Alan Blinder and Mark Watson found that the economy performs better when the president is a Democrat. They report that “by many measures, the performance gap is startlingly large.” Between Truman and Obama, growth was 1.8% higher under Democrats than Republicans.5
A Hudson Institute study found that the six years with the best growth were evenly split between Republican and Democrat presidents.6
Most of these evaluations measure growth during the president’s term in office. But no president has control over the growth added during his first year. The budget for that fiscal year was already set by the previous president, so it's helpful to compare the
gross domestic product (GDP) at the end of the president’s last budget to the end of their predecessor’s last budget.
For Obama, that would be the fiscal year from October 1, 2009, to September 30, 2018. That’s FY 2010 through FY 2017. During that time, annual GDP increased from $15.6 trillion to $17.7 trillion, or 14%.7 That’s 1.7% per year.
The chart below ranks the presidents since 1929 on the average annual increase in GDP.
PRESIDENT |
FINAL FY BUDGET |
GDP (IN BILLIONS) |
ADDED TO GDP |
% INCREASE |
ANNUAL AVERAGE |
---|
ROOSEVELT | 1945 | $2,352 | $1,524 | 184% | 15.3% |
---|
LBJ | 1969 | $4,792 | $1,089 | 29% | 5.9% |
---|
JFK | 1964 | $3,703 | $443 | 14% | 4.5% |
---|
CLINTON | 2001 | $13,131 | $3,446 | 36% | 4.4% |
---|
REAGAN | 1989 | $8,867 | $2,107 | 31% | 3.9% |
---|
NIXON | 1974 | $5,687 | $895 | 19% | 3.7% |
---|
CARTER | 1981 | $6,759 | $810 | 14% | 3.4% |
---|
EISENHOWER | 1961 | $3,260 | $685 | 27% | 3.3% |
---|
TRUMP | 2019 | $19,091 | $1,360 | 8% | 2.6% |
---|
GW BUSH | 2009 | $15,605 | $2,474 | 19% | 2.4% |
---|
GHW BUSH | 1993 | $9,685 | $818 | 9% | 2.3% |
---|
OBAMA | 2017 | $17,731 | $2,126 | 14% | 1.7% |
---|
FORD | 1977 | $5,949 | $262 | 5% | 1.5% |
---|
TRUMAN | 1953 | $2,575 | $223 | 9% | 1.2% |
---|
HOOVER | 1933 | $828 | $(282) | -25% | -8.5% |
---|
The next table calculates the average annual growth for Democrats versus Republicans. Because of the Great Depression, Democrats grew the economy by 5.2% annually, while Republicans grew it by only 1.4%.
PRESIDENT | DEMOCRATS | REPUBLICANS |
---|
Roosevelt | 15.3% | |
LBJ | 5.9% | |
JFK | 4.5% | |
Clinton | 4.4% | |
Reagan | | 3.9% |
Nixon | | 3.7% |
Carter | 3.4% | |
Eisenhower | | 3.3% |
Trump | | 2.6% |
GW Bush | | 2.4% |
GHW Bush | | 2.3% |
Obama | 1.7% | |
Ford | | 1.5% |
Truman | 1.2% | |
Hoover | | -8.5% |
Total | 36.5% | 11.2% |
Annual Average | 5.2% | 1.4% |
Note that Trump figures do not include 2020 data.
Since the Depression was an outlier to this dataset, it makes sense to remove both FDR’s and Hoover’s results. Not counting the Depression, Democrats gained 3.6% on average, while Republicans gained 2.8%.