Last edited Sat May 4, 2013, 03:57 AM - Edit history (1)

Republican presidencies have low job creation rates -- and presumably higher suicide rates as a consequence. Now all we need is someone to dig up suicide rates during these different administrations.

ON EDIT - thanks WTF in #5. I made some revisions


Job Creation of record of post-WWII Presidents With Completed Terms, Plus Kennedy, Average Annual % Increases :

(Sorted from best to worst by average annual percentage increase in jobs. Republicans in red, Democrats in blue. Notice that -- with the tiny exception (0.02% difference) of Nixon to Kennedy -- the worst Democrat has a better record than the best Republican). And actually, Kennedy did not have a chance to complete his term -- had he done so, and had he had the same job creation numbers in December 1963 through January 1965 as Johnson had (a 3.48%/year annualized rate of increase), he would have easily topped Nixon. [x I haven't bothered with the very small 2/1/13 revisions to 1990 and later (and possibly before 1990, have not checked carefully) -- very small that is until the Obama presidency which had considerable revisions, but Obama is not in this table yet]

[div style="display:inline; font-size:1.37em; font-family:monospace; white-space:pre;"][font color= ] Average Average [/font]
[div style="display:inline; font-size:1.37em; font-family:monospace; white-space:pre;"][font color= ] number of Jobs at Annual [/font]
[div style="display:inline; font-size:1.37em; font-family:monospace; white-space:pre;"][font color= ] Jobs start of Percentage[/font]
[div style="display:inline; font-size:1.37em; font-family:monospace; white-space:pre;"][font color= ] Created Term Increase [/font]
[div style="display:inline; font-size:1.37em; font-family:monospace; white-space:pre;"][font color= ] President Per Month Millions In Jobs [/font]
[div style="display:inline; font-size:1.37em; font-family:monospace; white-space:pre;"][font color= ] ========= ========= ======== ======= [/font]
[div style="display:inline; font-size:1.37em; font-family:monospace; white-space:pre;"][font color=blue] Johnson 196,500 57.3 4.12% [/font]
[div style="display:inline; font-size:1.37em; font-family:monospace; white-space:pre;"][font color=blue] Carter 215,396 80.7 3.20% [/font]
[div style="display:inline; font-size:1.37em; font-family:monospace; white-space:pre;"][font color=blue] Truman 93,570 41.4 2.71% [/font]
[div style="display:inline; font-size:1.37em; font-family:monospace; white-space:pre;"][font color=blue] Clinton 236,875 109.7 2.59% [/font]
[div style="display:inline; font-size:1.37em; font-family:monospace; white-space:pre;"][font color=red ] Nixon 137,030 69.4 2.37% [/font]
[div style="display:inline; font-size:1.37em; font-family:monospace; white-space:pre;"][font color=blue] Kennedy 105,059 53.7 2.35% [/font]
[div style="display:inline; font-size:1.37em; font-family:monospace; white-space:pre;"][font color=red ] Reagan 167,729 91.0 2.21% [/font]
[div style="display:inline; font-size:1.37em; font-family:monospace; white-space:pre;"][font color=red ] Ford 71,483 78.6 1.09% [/font]
[div style="display:inline; font-size:1.37em; font-family:monospace; white-space:pre;"][font color=red ] Eisenhower 36,854 50.1 0.88% [/font]
[div style="display:inline; font-size:1.37em; font-family:monospace; white-space:pre;"][font color=red ] G.H. Bush 54,021 107.1 0.61% [/font]
[div style="display:inline; font-size:1.37em; font-family:monospace; white-space:pre;"][font color=red ] G.W. Bush 11,406 132.5 0.10% [/font]

The average annual % increase in jobs is a much fairer way to compare presidents than just the raw job creation figures in thousands because the latter is unfair to the earlier presidents who were working with much smaller labor forces to begin with. For example the number of job holders at the beginning of Truman's administration was only 38% as many as at the beginning of Clinton's administration, and 31% as many as at the beginning of G.W. Bush's administration. So Truman's pathetic-looking 93,570 jobs/month creation record turns out to be even better than Clinton's 236,875 jobs/month record when adjusted for the size of the labor force.

In raw thousands of jobs created, both Reagan and Nixon beat Truman. But when adjusted for the size of the labor force -- again, by looking at average annual percentage increases in jobs -- Truman beats them both.

Official sources of information for the above:

# Payroll Jobs: http://data.bls.gov/timeseries/CES0000000001
# Monthly change of above: http://data.bls.gov/timeseries/CES0000000001?output_view=net_1mth
# . . Hint: to see both of the above two together on the same page, go to http://data.bls.gov/timeseries/CES0000000001 and click on the "More Formatting Options" link in the upper right and check the "Original Data Value" and the "1-Month Net Change" checkboxes and click the "Retrieve Data" button halfway down the page on the left

http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Ronald_Reagan

It's a pisser. All the keys are right there. Along with his joke about recession and depression. Good old Saint Ronnie.

Maybe whites aren't as resilient as other demographic groups?

U.S. suicide rates (all ages): 12 per 100,000 in 1999 to 14 in 2010, a 15% increase. A total of 38,350 suicides in 2010.

U.S. middle aged (age 35-64) suicide rates (from 1999 to 2010): from 14 to 18 per 100,000 -- a 28% increase. Middle Aged: {whites from 15.9 to 22.3, black from 6.4 to 6.8, Hispanic 7.1 to 7.4, Asian/Pacific islander: 7.1 to 7.8, American Indian and Alaskan Native: 11.2 to 18.5 per 100,000}.

More: http://news.yahoo.com/us-suicide-rate-rose-sharply-among-middle-aged-160018154.html

Boomers, born between 1946 and 1964 are ages 49 to 67.

So Generation X is part of the "middle age" "age 35 to 64" demographic too. (I've seen all kinds of different age ranges given to Generation X although they generally agree that the oldest were born in 1965 or so.

Oh well, they found a way to get rid of all of them long-haired hippies since we boomers don't do drugs anymore. Of course it will take years before anyone admits the real reason behind the phenomenon.