Presidential Economy Rankings 1964 to 2024

Which President had the best economy? Is Trump the best ever? Is Biden the worst ever? Carter?

Let's see!

Methodology

All applicable categories were ranked. Stock market performamce, GDP Growth, Unemployment, Inflation, poverty, and disposable income adjusted for inflation.

The average of the first 5 categories is taken. Because disposilable income has steadily fallen since 1964, and has unequal application for fair rankings, it was assessed differently and/or excluded entirely. (Two tables)

For that category a handicap is rewarded for percentage of reduction in disposable income from the predecessor.

Points Reduction Table:

Greater than 20% reduction = 0 points
10-19.99% = .5 points
5-9.99% = 1 point
0-4.99% = 2 points
Growth = 3 points

Like Golf, lowest score wins.

Yes, all rankings are freaking flawed, but are really fun to do for statistic nerds at heart, and a non-bias metric to arbitrarily compare economic performance of all administrations seemed like it could be fun.

Enjoy.

Sources:

www.nasdaq.com...:-how-the-economy-performed-under-each-president

darrowwealthmanagement.com...

Data:

LBJ

Stock market: 46.6 (6)
GDP growth: 2.6 (3)
Unemployment: 3.4 (1)
Inflation: 4.4 (5)
Poverty: 12.8 (5)
Disposable $: 130,500 (-.5 point from JFK)

Nixon

Stock Market: -19.8 (10)
GDP growth: 2.0 (7)
Unemployment: 5.5 (6)
Inflation: 10.9 (9)
Poverty: 12.0 (4)
Disposable $: 110,000 (-.5 point)

Ford:

Stock Market: 28.4 (9)
GDP growth: 2.8 (2)
Unemployment: 7.5 (10)
Inflation: 5.2 (8)
Poverty: 11.9 (2)
Disposable $: 95,600 (-.5 point)

Carter:

Stock Market: 30.5 (8)
GDP growth: 4.6 (1)
Unemployment: 7.4 (9)
Inflation: 11.8 (10)
Poverty: 13.0 (7)
Disposable $: 67,100 (0 points)

Reagan:

Stock Market: 117.9 (3)
GDP growth: 2.1 (6)
Unemployment: 5.4 (5)
Inflation: 4.7 (6)
Poverty: 13.1 (8)
Disposable $: 60,800 (-1 point)

HW Bush:

Stock Market: 51.8 (5)
GDP growth: 0.7 (9)
Unemployment: 7.3 (8)
Inflation: 3.3 (3)
Poverty: 14.5 (11)
Disposable $: 54,000 (-.5 point)

Clinton

Stock Market: 209.8 (1)
GDP growth: 0.3 (10)
Unemployment: 4.2 (3)
Inflation: 3.7 (4)
Poverty: 11.3 (1)
Disposable $: 53,900 (-2 points)

GW Bush:

Stock Market: -36.7 (11)
GDP growth: -1.2 (11)
Unemployment: 7.8 (11)
Inflation: 0.0 (1) * Deflation
Poverty: 13.2 (9)
Disposable $: 49,000 (-1 point)

Obama:

Stock Market: 181.1 (2)
GDP growth: 1.0 (8)
Unemployment: 4.7 (4)
Inflation: 2.5 (2)
Poverty: 14.0 (10)
Disposable $: 48,000 (-2 points)

Trump:

Stock Market: 87.3 (4)
GDP growth: 2.6 (3)
Unemployment: 6.4 (7)
Inflation: 1.4 (1)
Poverty: 11.9 (2)
Disposable $: 48,200 (-3 points)

Biden:

Stock Market: 36.4 (7)
GDP growth: 2.6 (3)
Unemployment: 3.5 (2)
Inflation: 5.0 (7)
Poverty: 12.8 (5)
Disposable $: 46,500 (-2 points)

And surprise, surprise.

Final Scores and Ranking (with adjustment):

Trump = 0.4
Clinton = 1.8
Biden = 2.8
Obama = 3.2
LBJ = 3.5
Reagan = 4.6
Ford = 5.7
HW Bush = 6.7
Nixon = 6.7
Carter = 7.0
GW Bush = 7.6

Results without adjustment:

Trump = 3.4
Clinton = 3.8
LBJ = 4.0
Biden = 4.8
Obama = 5.2
Reagan = 5.6
Ford = 6.2
Carter = 7.0
Nixon = 7.2
HW Bush = 7.7
GW Bush = 8.6

So there it is.

I knew I was going to eat this outcome as soon as I started ranking them. And then I considered altering the "expendable income adjustment" somehow to not make it so. Maybe too generous with point allotment. Alas, my fuzzy metric backfired and Trump beat the three I thought would be on top.

My predicted top 5:

Clinton
Obama
Biden
Trump
Reagan

Yesterday, I distinctly remember calling Trump Satan, and in my effort to rank economies fairly (and discredit his claims) I ended up begrudgingly giving the devil his due.

Which now HAS to be flawed because Clinton didn't win! Lol.

* Note - Because I'm lazy and didn't want to devote TOO much time, I used that single Nasdaq article and trusted their percentages were accurate. Not by any means thorough.

a reply to: Degradation33

You're fatal flaw, is that all those numbers are BS.

They also fail to account for the Congress that held the majority at those points.

Maybe try a bit harder next time.

Lol it took me a Minute to realize you were doing it like Golf Scores . Lower = Better

Impressive thank you for the Work put in .

Imagine Trumps economy without Covid-19 . Clinton has to get his due because of the Balanced Budget and I'll admit I thought he would be on top .

Obama's economy was riddled with War and the 2008 market Crash .

Reagan I thought would do better and the rest are a little before my time .

a reply to: Degradation33
I saw that data several months ago, and I draw a different conclusion than you do.

To cut to the chase; I think only one of those indicators really matters. That’s disposable income per capita in constant dollars. Most of the others go up and down with different Administrations but they are mostly just plus or minus a few percentage points. They also don’t show any consistent pattern with respect to whether the Administration was Republican or Democrat. But disposable income has gone down steadily under all Administrations until it is now only about 37% of what it was in the mid 60s, in constant dollars.

This is why it has been getting harder and harder for the working class to get by. It’s almost impossible for blue collar workers to live above the poverty level with only one breadwinner in the family. This is why the birth rate has fallen below replacement levels.

The working class is always asking for lower taxes, but at the lower income levels (10% - 12% taxes), you could have zero tax rate, and that wouldn’t solve the problem. Taxes aren’t the problem. The problem is that we’ve been systematically redistributing wealth from the bottom half of society to the upper 1%.

This kind of consistent pattern over 50 years means that it can’t be the result of any particular POTUS; there has to be something more fundamental at work.

a reply to: Degradation33

As a statistics nerd, major props for the effort. One of my favorite books was "How to Lie with Statistics".

Stats are never the end all be all whether it is in sports, business, politics, etc. but going back to the 60s it certainly makes the outliers interesting. Even with my mostly basic understanding.

If the methodology is sound, I wouldn't know, it is crazy to think Trump performed that well, with a hostile Congress, the riots, and especially COVID.

Here's a couple of graphics that stuck with me

darrowwealthmanagement.com...

Annualized bond returns during presidential terms
As expected, the volatility in the bond market is much less than equities. Since 1977, only president Biden his tracking to have negative annualized fixed income returns over the course of their administration.

originally posted by: watchitburn
a reply to: Degradation33

You're fatal flaw, is that all those numbers are BS.

They also fail to account for the Congress that held the majority at those points.

Maybe try a bit harder next time.

That probably isn't fair from the link included in the OP, the difference between a Democratic Congress and a Republican one is 7.5 points when it's divided it's just 3.5 points.

ie it makes a smaller difference than one would think, even though the Democrats were particularly nasty and stubborn during Trump's tenure. It's just one of dozens of factors

a reply to: Boomer1947

That was the hardest part to do. The falling disposable income is consistent middle class erosion in action. I copped out and decided to reward who contracted the lowest percentage, but missed devils in details to why.

How do you subdivide per capita into wealth groups? Getting complex. Hence why it's likely flawed. But I wanted the impact of it to be separate at very least.

On Trump for example, the increase in average disposable income from his predecessor was the result of the upper class tax breaks during a bull economy with very low inflation. The extra income of top tax brackets still skewed the lesser effect Trump's plan had to the lower middle class, which actually slightly contracted, as it traditionally does with trickle down.

*This is the same criticism as abolishing income tax in favor of isolationist tariffs. It will benefit the rich, and on paper "disposable income per capita" would skyrocket. But did it really for the pleabs?

With a category for "job creation", you could rank the total created or consider what jobs are really created. 3/4 of Reagan's job creation was "service/retail". Clinton and Obama had more high tech and unionized jobs created.

There's a lot of variables to consider, I'm sure there are several other flaws that will be pointed out.

a reply to: Degradation33

To be complete, national debt and such would also factor in somehow.

LBJ is the only President I ever saw in person, but I have a vague recollection of Nixon's Wage and Price Freeze. www.cato.org... . Harris' talk of lowering costs sort of reminded me of that.

The article blames congress for increasing Presidential powers, but nowadays it seems SCOTUS is in on it too.

I was a savings account holder during Reagan, I enjoyed large interest rates. Now interest rates are considered a crime. Guilty of holding back or chilling the stock market.

That's odd because the scotus just severely limited executive powers.

a reply to: Degradation33

If I were you I'd vote for Klamellaa Hubris.



I'm not because I still like America and hate communism.

Clinton did balance the budget with Rs running both house and Senate and they failed to say guilty when they Impeached him.

originally posted by: asabuvsobelow
Lol it took me a Minute to realize you were doing it like Golf Scores . Lower = Better

Impressive thank you for the Work put in .

Imagine Trumps economy without Covid-19 . Clinton has to get his due because of the Balanced Budget and I'll admit I thought he would be on top .

Obama's economy was riddled with War and the 2008 market Crash .

Reagan I thought would do better and the rest are a little before my time .

a reply to: watchitburn

The thing is, that even if reversing Chevron puts more power in the Judiciary, the justices have shown that they don't value stare decisis as much as they claimed in Senate confirmation hearings.

They can go right back to Chevron if Trump gets in with Heritage foundation vetted ideologues in place; and they can reverse Trump v U.S. if Harris gets in.

================
Warning: This may be thread drift!!!
===============

I read recentl that the democrats controlled the house and senate for every recession we’ve ever had.

originally posted by: Justoneman
Clinton did balance the budget with Rs running both house and Senate and they failed to say guilty when they Impeached him.

originally posted by: asabuvsobelow
Lol it took me a Minute to realize you were doing it like Golf Scores . Lower = Better

Impressive thank you for the Work put in .

Imagine Trumps economy without Covid-19 . Clinton has to get his due because of the Balanced Budget and I'll admit I thought he would be on top .

Obama's economy was riddled with War and the 2008 market Crash .

Reagan I thought would do better and the rest are a little before my time .

Clinton balanced the budget by cooking the books. He still left office with a higher national debt than when he came into office.

He also took the time to destroy our economy for at least a decade after...

Linky

So... just no.

a reply to: Lumenari

Your link left out the worst part, the trade agreements with China and also NAFTA.

Anyone who was not brainwashed by the Democrats could have seen that during Trump's time in the whitehouse our economy was flourishing till the pandemic hit, and even after the pandemic hit, prices of most things did not raise and gas was low...but toilet paper and paper towels turned to gold. Eggs also had a severe rise in price from the pandemic. The Democrats who initially denied the pandemic and called Trump racist for restricting travel all of a sudden made a big issue, forcing it so people could not go to work or school after it was found that the virus was not as bad for most people as they thought it was going to be. It would have been easier to protect those at risk than screw up our economy so bad. Of course Biden took credit for the vaccine's saving the world...which were created under Trumps presidency...which should have been tested more but the desire by him to save the people led to an improperly pushed vaccine and improper precedures to be implemented on the sick...sticking people on breathing machines instead of doctors using common practices in hospitals to treat covid. Trump believed in the lies promoted by the three letter health agencies trying to gain prestige for saving the world.

Ok, this turned into a gripe on my part....the main thing is that I could see a pretty good economy under Trump and never believed that Biden did a better job than Trump did because I usually analyze everything as time goes by. But sometimes I should analyze what is going on in my family more than looking at everything...I am not perfect by any means.

a reply to: DBCowboy



INGREDIENTS:

WATER
SUGAR
SMOKE
MIRRORS
PREOCCUPATION
OPINION
PATRIOTISM
LOVE OF FREEDOM, AND LIBERTY
BELIEF FREEDOM AND LIBERTY IS AT STAKE
BELIEF OTHERS DONT EMBRACE IT THE SAME
BELIEF THE OTHER IS A THREAT TO IT.
BELIEF YOUR FEAR OF THE OTHER IS MORE REAL
OPTIMISM
FATALISM
FEAR
LOATHING
LOVE
HATE
PASSION
DESPONDENCY

NEED FOR LITHIUM.

[Insert Gif of demonic laughing face here]

Nevermind the grape kool-aid.

originally posted by: CriticalStinker
a reply to: Lumenari

Your link left out the worst part, the trade agreements with China and also NAFTA.

I wasn't going to go there... I just am shocked when people over and over again claim that Clinton balanced the budget.

NO DOUBT: Spending 20% more today, than in early 2021 for the same basket of groceries, is tragic.

$261 then...$318 now: fred.stlouisfed.org...

The people who are responsible, are NOT taking responsibility as they should.

But they want us to give them another 4 years to "finish the job".

I don't think there are as many suckers in America today, as there were in November 2020.

a reply to: Degradation33

How about, just leave me the # alone!