Fact Check: Yes, Democrats Were in White House for 50M of 51M Jobs Created Since 1989

Claim:

Since the end of the Cold War in 1989, Democratic presidents created 50 million of the 51 million jobs added to the economy between then and July 2024.

Rating:

Context:

There are many economic factors outside of a presidential administration’s control, which makes it impossible to assert that Democratic or Republican administrations are wholly responsible for the job creation numbers during the years they presided. However, a thorough examination of the data revealed that Democratic presidents far outpaced Republican presidents on job creation since at least 1945.

Former U.S. President Bill Clinton claimed during the Democratic National Convention in August 2024 that of the 51 million jobs created in the country since the end of the Cold War in 1989, Democrats were in the White House for 50 million of them (archived):

This post on X had gathered 3.3 million views and 22,000 likes, as of this writing. It included a video clip of Clinton speaking during the convention:

California Gov. Gavin Newsom also spread this claim, adding that Democrats had presided over 96% of job creation since 1989 (archived):

The claim is true, though it needs context.

How Much Better Did Democrats Do on Jobs?

Pulling data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Snopes created a spreadsheet to calculate the total number of jobs created under each administration, as well as the monthly average of jobs created for each president since 1945.

Two tables appear on the spreadsheet. The first goes from January 1989 to August 2024 to cover the period Clinton was discussing. The second includes data from 1945 to 1989 for a longer comparison of the job-creation record of Democratic and Republican presidents.

The calculations revealed that Democrats presided over the creation of 73.2% of jobs since World War II, and 97.5% of them between 1989 and 2024, a slightly higher proportion than the 96% Newsom claimed. While the comparison since 1989 — 50.3 million jobs under Democrats vs. 1.3 million under Republicans — is especially flattering for the Democratic Party, the fact remains that Democrats were in the White House during the creation of nearly three times as many jobs as when Republicans held the presidency in the past 79 years.

Looking solely at the 1945-89 period, the picture was more balanced. In that time, Democrats were in office for 55% of the job creation, against the Republicans’ 45%.

This does not mean that Democrats were responsible for every new job. Like the economy at large, the health of the job market depends on factors that are often beyond an administration’s control. Importantly, the U.S. population grew by 90.3 million since 1989 and nearly 198 million since 1945. Population growth translates into a larger workforce.

Further, since 1989, Republican administrations faced severe headwinds. George W. Bush’s presidency began with the 9/11 terrorist attacks, which resulted in an economic downturn. It ended with the financial collapse that caused the Great Recession. Donald Trump was president when the COVID-19 pandemic began, removing millions of jobs from the economy.

In Every Comparison, Job Creation Was Higher Under Democrats

It was not anodyne that Clinton picked 1989 as a start date for his comparison. Had he started in 1980, the difference would have been less stark, as Republican Ronald Reagan saw the creation of more than 16 million jobs in his eight years as president. Even so, the Democrats would have come out ahead. Clinton himself holds the record of most jobs created during a presidential administration, at nearly 23 million over two terms. Meanwhile, Democrat Joe Biden’s administration oversaw the creation of 16 million jobs in less than four years, though as Snopes reported, 9 million of those jobs were seen as the COVID-19 “bounce-back.”

Overall, going back to September 1945 — when World War II ended — we calculated that as Democrats held the White House, the economy created 88 million jobs. In the same span of time, it created a bit more than 32 million under Republican presidents. Notably, there were seven presidents from each party in that time — though the GOP held the office about a year longer, as of September 2024.

For another view on each party’s performance, we looked at the monthly average of jobs created. There, too, Democrats far outpaced Republicans. Including all presidents since 1945, Democrats added on average nearly 188,000 jobs each month, while Republicans added 67,000.

No matter which way we looked at it, the data showed Democrats did better on jobs than Republicans by a large margin.

Sources:

All Employees, Total Nonfarm. 6 Sept. 2024, https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/PAYEMS.

Liles, Jordan. ‘During Trump’s Presidency, US Job Growth Was Worst Since Hoover and the Great Depression?’ Snopes, 17 Apr. 2024, https://www.snopes.com//fact-check/trump-hoover-jobs-record/.

‘Notice: Data Not Available: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics’. Bureau of Labor Statistics, https://data.bls.gov/pdq/SurveyOutputServlet. Accessed 6 Sept. 2024.

Rascouët-Paz, Anna. ‘US Economy Added 15M Jobs Under Biden — But Number Requires Context’. Snopes, 28 June 2024, https://www.snopes.com//fact-check/economy-under-biden/.

—. U.S. Jobs per President since 1945. Spreadsheet, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 6 Sept. 2024, https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1piaeMNXkL9P5eaRppmoVvz-WrucJL2gNQS7-rdrCBAs/edit?gid=0#gid=0.