An illustration of Republican Weakness When It Comes To Jobs

[Mina]

Let's say we measure each president in terms of the average performance of the job market during his era versus where it stood when he was sworn in. In other words, we take the average unemployment rate during each presidency, and see how that compares to the rate such president inherited in his predecessor's last month.

For example, in the elder Bush's last month in office (January 1993) we had 7.3% unemployment, whereas in Clinton's era we averaged 5.17%, so Clinton's score would be -2.13 (7.30-5.17), to reflect an average unemployment rate well below that starting point.

Here's what it looks like for every president for whom we have the official rates to do the calculation:

Ford: +2.34
Eisenhower: +2.03
Nixon: +1.63
Bush2: +1.11
Bush1: +0.94
Trump: +0.34
Reagan: +0.01
Obama: -0.39
Kennedy: -0.64
Carter: -0.96
Johnson: -1.52
Biden: -1.54
Clinton: -2.13

https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/UNRATE

I wonder if you can spot any pattern there.

 

[Mina]

Do people have any theory about WHY all Republican eras have higher average unemployment rates than the rates they inherited?

I explored that a bit here:

https://www.justplainpolitics.com/s...h-Republican-presidents&p=5118469#post5118469

It's strange, though. We might initially expect Republican eras to be better for jobs. After all, Republican eras, at least for the last half century or so, have been eras of tons of artificial economic stimulus. During the Reagan, Bush, Bush, and Trump presidencies, we got huge increases in deficit spending, which we'd ordinarily expect to stimulate job growth (at long-term cost). They were also ALL eras when the Federal Reserve reduced the target federal funds rate, to try to stimulate the economy by flooding it with money (making it easier for people to finance short-term economic activity in exchange for long-term private debt).

Yet, despite those Republican eras being times of such stimulus (and the Democratic eras being times when we were fighting against the headwinds of net interest rate increases and deficit reductions), the Democratic eras ended up being ones with lower unemployment rates than those presidents had inherited, while the Republican eras had higher.

Why? Why are Republican presidents so bad for jobs?

 

[Celticguy]

many factors not the least of which is that jobs have more of a training effect than you are crediting.
external impacts (terrorist attacks, oil embargos, once a century pandemics etc).

oh, by the way, lets see how Biden looks after 4 years just to be fair.

 

[Mina]

many factors not the least of which is that jobs have more of a training effect than you are crediting.

I don't know what you mean by that.

external impacts (terrorist attacks, oil embargos, once a century pandemics etc)

But isn't it at all weird that the negative external impacts ALWAYS hit the Republicans and NEVER the Democrats?

Of course that's not at all the case. Carter dealt with a severe oil shock, yet the unemployment rate on his watch was lower, on average, than what Ford left him. Biden has had a raging pandemic throughout the entirety of his presidency, yet has a much lower unemployment average than Trump left him.

Then there's also the issue of whether we want to basically let a president off the hook for something he arguably had some control over. Like yes, 9/11 happened on Bush's watch. But it only happened after he basically neglected the issue of terrorism for his first eight months in office, including bugging out for a month-long vacation just as intelligence officials were going nuts over signs of something big in the works. He prioritized hanging out at his country villa for a month over holding even a single principals meeting about the terrorist threat, even as he was getting daily briefings on things like Bin Laden's determination to strike in the US. A

Even after the attack happened, there's no reason it had to hit the economy as hard as it did. We're talking about fewer than 3,000 dead. We had plenty of single days of COVID with bigger death tolls than that. It was, on a national scale, a mere flesh wound. Yet the Republicans saw it not as something to bounce back from quickly, but rather something to build as much fear up about as possible, in order to acquire political capital to push through an unrelated conquest of Iraq that had been on their wishlist for many years. The constant scare-mongering multiplied the economic impact of an incident so minor on a national scale that it doesn't even show up as a mortality blip. So, should we excuse Bush's horrible performance on the jobs front by way of his horrible performance on that other front?

oh, by the way, lets see how Biden looks after 4 years just to be fair.

Absolutely. Feel free to put an asterisk there. But generally speaking, Democratic eras have tended to get better as they went along. At this point of the Clinton presidency, we had 6.1% unemployment (en route to 3.9%). At this point in the Obama presidency, it was 9.6%, en route to 4.7%.

 

[Celticguy]

I don't know what you mean by that.

Jobs, not unlike the economy, do not change course on inauguration days. Bush the elder had turned the corner on the effects of the oil embargo and Carter's miserable economy but it was Clinton who realized the bulk of that recovery. And alnog with that came improvements in jobs.

But isn't it at all weird that the negative external impacts ALWAYS hit the Republicans and NEVER the Democrats?

no nor is it true

Of course that's not at all the case. Carter dealt with a severe oil shock, yet the unemployment rate on his watch was lower, on average, than what Ford left him. Biden has had a raging pandemic throughout the entirety of his presidency, yet has a much lower unemployment average than Trump left him.

Trump dealt with the pandemic and had gotten most of the pieces in place for people to resume working, Biden only hurt with needless "stimulus" which initiated raging inflation and making UKR burst into flame.

Then there's also the issue of whether we want to basically let a president off the hook for something he arguably had some control over. Like yes, 9/11 happened on Bush's watch. But it only happened after he basically neglected the issue of terrorism for his first eight months in office, including bugging out for a month-long vacation just as intelligence officials were going nuts over signs of something big in the works. He prioritized hanging out at his country villa for a month over holding even a single principals meeting about the terrorist threat, even as he was getting daily briefings on things like Bin Laden's determination to strike in the US. A

Clinton refused to take the call of Special OPs asking for kill order when they had eyes on Hussein. Lets leave the goal posts alone.





Absolutely. Feel free to put an asterisk there. But generally speaking, Democratic eras have tended to get better as they went along. At this point of the Clinton presidency, we had 6.1% unemployment (en route to 3.9%). At this point in the Obama presidency, it was 9.6%, en route to 4.7%.[/QUOTE]

 

[Mina]

Jobs, not unlike the economy, do not change course on inauguration days.

Some do. The day before inauguration day, Trump filled the job of president. The day after, Biden did. That also triggers a cascade of other changes in government, which then works its way out from there. However, yes, it can take time for the changes to show up more widely.

Bush the elder had turned the corner on the effects of the oil embargo and Carter's miserable economy but it was Clinton who realized the bulk of that recovery

What an odd misremembering of history. In between Carter leaving office and Clinton taking office we had two different recessions. But I do notice this tendency among right-wingers to imagine the "economic fuse" is exactly as long as it needs to be in order to support their prejudices, and not a bit longer. So, the 1993-2000 economic boom is the delayed result of 1981-1988 policies, but the horrible economic suffering of the early 1980s cannot be blamed on Nixon and Ford (which would be an identically lengthy fuse), but must instead be blamed on Carter. The fuse is longer or shorter from moment to moment depending on what the convenience of the argument demands.

no nor is it true

What's true is that right-wingers find themselves having to reach for excuses again and again, because ALL the modern Republican presidencies had higher average unemployment rates than what they inherited from their predecessors.

Trump dealt with the pandemic and had gotten most of the pieces in place for people to resume working....

As a reminder, the economy was actually LOSING jobs again by the end of 2020. We had net job destruction in December of that year. It was only after Biden took office that we had consistent job growth.

Clinton refused to take the call of Special OPs asking for kill order when they had eyes on Hussein

Link?

Lets leave the goal posts alone.

I'd love to. That's why I simply measure how things did in each era and I do a straight up comparison. But right-wingers really don't like how that looks, so there's all that assuming of custom-made fuses, so that they can attribute any success or failure to the Republican or Democratic policy they liked or disliked from whatever number of years earlier it happened.