Contrary To Popular Belief, The GOP Is NOT Better At Handling The Economy

The following is part of an article by Abdallah Fayyad at Vox.com:

Throughout the 2024 election, polls showed voters believed President-elect Donald Trump would be better for the economy than President Joe Biden or Vice President Kamala Harris. That sentiment often repeats in many election cycles because Americans tend to think Republicans are better at handling the economy than Democrats. In 2012, for example, polls showed that voters trusted Mitt Romney more on the economy than Barack Obama.

There are a lot of reasons why voters would think this. Republicans have a long history of branding themselves as the pro-business party that will cut taxes and eliminate red tape. Meanwhile, Democrats run on strengthening regulations, and even though those can be popular proposals (like, say, raising the minimum wage), voters get concerned that those policies will hinder business.

But there’s a disconnect between how voters feel about Republicans’ management of the economy and the historical record. Since World War II, there’s been a consistent pattern of the economy faring better under Democratic presidents than Republican ones. More jobs have been created under Democrats, for example, who also saw higher rates of GDP growth. And economic downturns tend to happen under Republicans: Ten of the last 11 recessions started under a Republican administration.

First things first: The economy has expanded more under Democrats than Republicans. Since 1945, Democratic presidents oversaw, on average, 4.1 percent annual GDP growth, whereas Republican administrations had an average GDP growth rate of 2.5 percent, according to CFRA Research, an investment research firm.

When it comes to job creation, both Biden and Harris highlighted Trump’s poor record: During his first term, the United States lost more jobs than it had gained — the worst jobs record of any president in modern history. In Trump’s defense, the Covid-19 pandemic, a once-in-a-century kind of event, is the reason so many jobs were gone by the time he left office. But while Trump can point to Covid as the reason for his bad performance, the truth is that Republicans still have a significantly worse jobs record than Democrats.

Going back to President Harry Truman, Democrats have added more than twice the amount of jobs as Republicans (70.5 million jobs under Democrats compared to 29.1 million under Republicans), according to the Washington Post.

Even the stock market — which, it should be noted, does not always reflectthe actual health of the economy — has performed better under Democratic leadership. According to CFRA Research, the S&P 500 saw an average annual gain of 11.2 percent under Democrats and 6.9 percent under Republicans since 1945.