A thread:

The economy has performed much better under Democratic presidents than Republicans over the past century.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/02/opinion/sunday/democrats-economy.html

(1/n)

It’s true of GDP, jobs, incomes and other measures. It’s true if you start a president’s clock immediately or assume a lag between president and impact.

(2/n)

The six modern presidents to have presided over the strongest job growth are all Democrats. The four presidents to have presided over the weakest job growth are all Republicans.

(3/n)

You see a similar picture with GDP:

(4/n)

Why does the economy fare better under Democratic presidents? Coincidence surely plays a role. But it seems to require a big stretch of logic to argue that it’s all just a big, 90-year coincidence. (And it's not about deficits.)

So what are the plausible explanations?

(5/n)

Republican presidents have been slow to respond to recessions and other crises -- Trump and both Bushes being examples.

Hoover was too, and the partisan gap would be even bigger if the data went back far enough to include him.

(6/n)

Recent Democratic presidents have been more pragmatic, willing to listen to the evidence about when the economy would benefit from deficit reduction and when it needs government support for education, infrastructure, scientific research and more.

(7/n)

And Republican presidents over the past 40 years have pursued one economic policy above all other — tax cuts, skewed heavily toward the affluent. But there is little evidence that they do much for economic growth.

(8/n)

More on the partisan gap in economic performance here: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/02/opinion/sunday/democrats-economy.html

(fin)