The Myth Busting Economist by Larry Malone

Are Republican Presidents Better for the Economy?

Now that we’ve entered the post-election weeks of November, it’s time to bust an oft-cited myth about presidents and the economy. The title of this column says it all—there’s a widely held belief that Republican presidents produce better results for the American economy than Democrats.

So let’s test this claim with a close look at the last 50 years. We go all the way back to 1974, and the Presidential Administration of Gerald Ford. During the 50 years from then until now, Republicans occupied the Oval Office for 27 years, and Democrats for 23. The Republicans, and the total years of their presidencies were: Ford (3), Reagan (8), Bush I (4), Bush II (8), and Trump (4). The Democrats were Carter (4), Clinton (8), Obama (8) and Biden (3, to date).

The granddaddy of all indicators of economic performance is whether the United States economy is growing or shrinking. A recession means negative economic growth, measured by a decline in the Gross Domestic Product. In the past 50 years there were eight recessions in the U.S., occurring over a total of 81 months, or six years and nine months. This means the American economy was in a recession 13.5 percent of that time. Republican presidents were in office for 68 months of recession compared to 13 months for Democrats. So, if one measure of performance is recession, Democratic presidents handily beat Republicans for growing the economy over the past 50 years.