Well, maybe they didn't mean the envy of most presidents of the United States.

Admittedly we are being outpaced by Zambia, but we've certainly shown up Niger in real GDP growth rates.

http://www.indexmundi.com/map.aspx?v=GDP+-+real+growth+rate(%25)

Quite a coinky dink, here's Abramovitz in the WaPo today, also the first sentence of his SOTU preview:

For years, President Bush and his advisers expressed frustration that the White House received little credit for the nation's strong economic performance because of public discontent about the Iraq war.

Is it possible that both intrepid reporters talked to the same anonymous high administration official, wrote down what said anonymous HAO said, and presented it as the centerpiece of their own "reporting," without bothering to check if it was, you know, true? Naaahhhh.

And the Bush II presidency isn't over. If the economy falls into recession this year -- or already is -- his average might just sink back down to Poppy's levels.

Ezra, if you really want to take that chart to the next level, put a second column next to each president showing the average fiscal deficit/surplus in %GDP (better still would be the rate of change of the deficit, to account for what they inherited from the guy before). Sure Reagan was just behind Clinton, but with his deficits he was basically priming the pump the entire time he was in office. Clinton had more growth and decreased the deficit. It's easier to grow the economy when you are cutting taxes and spending like a drunk.... Straightforward GDP comparisons never seem to take this into account.

Also, in 2000 when I looked at the growth of the previous 5 years, I wondered if this country hadn't simply crammed 10 years of growth into a 5 year span. The stock market more-or-less seems to think it did.

Thanks Ezra. I actually got sufficiently worked up about this to point it out to the Public Editor. I was looking for a way to goof off uselessly at my desk.

while it's great fun to single out one corrolary such as the growth of the economy under this prez or that, the truth is the factors not considered are so huge as to make any assessment meaningless.

To give further meaning to GDP growth, we'd have to incorporate population size into the equation to gage its distributional effects. We now have 300 million population, as opposed to previous populations around 200 & 250 million.

Cervantes seems to be onto something, but what strikes me most about that is this: what planet are the NYT and WaPo folks living on that they wouldn't be skeptical of such a claim? Democrats laud the growth of the 1990s and 1960s, and Republicans laud the growth of the 1980s. That's 24 of the 40 years before Bush II that had, on average, intuitively better economies than the last seven years. So at best, he's intuitively well below average.

If someone made a claim to you, as a reporter, that was totally opposed to your intuition of what was true, why would you report it as if it was without fact-checking it? This betrays a disgraceful lack of professionalism for a reporter, sure, but it's also just totally crazy for a sentient person, isn't it?

although I am not a Bush fan, I would like to know why the media continue to perpetuate this falsehood on the American people that the President actually has an active role in how the economy performs and the economic cycle.

This simply means that the American people are incredibly ignorant about the economy (as most Presidents also tend to be)

no one comes close to touching the power of the Fed, and they're independent. The way the govt does affect the economy is via spending (deficit or not), thru the tax code (not these 2 things are dependent on CONGRESS) and lastly free trade or protectionism.

Clinton was faced with a Gingrich Congress in his 2nd terms, and therefore became a slave to the "bond market". (I am sure you all remember his famous quotes at the time). Hilary and Ickes got sidelined in favor of Gore and Rubin.

Long term interest rates tankes, stock market bubbled... later the bubble burst (as all bubbles do), Fed lowered rates to 1% and kept them there, this created the real estate bubble and now that has burst)

see a pattern? conditions create economic excesses and then bubbles burst to clean up the excess.

WHAT does the Presidency have to do with ANY of it?
Almost nothing.

I should add though, given what I wrote above

that Bush indeed has been a huge hindrance on economic performance with his wild deficit spending and the Iraqi albatross around his neck (budget wise) cannot be denied.

But there are also greater economic forces beyond Bush's control at play (oil prices, fall of dollar) and the bottom line is that the real estate bubble would have burst no matter what.

I would think that this data is pretty meaningless. Just what did the Presidents do on the day they entered until the day they left office has no correlation to their affect on the economy.

It would make much more sense to count from when their policies were enacted until the next Presidents policies were enacted and then probably add an addtl year for those policies to take affect in the forthcoming tax year.

I don't know what the answer would be, but it would be much more accurate on that Presidents affect on the economy.

In addition, any analysis would have to include what that President accomplished with what he spent. In addition, you can't talk about Clintons economics without mentioning the Republican take over of Congress and the massive change that brought to the business and future growth/expansion planning atmosphere.

If Reagan had larger deficits and managed to end the cold war - that's not a bad price to pay for freeing about a third of the world. If a President did nothing and ran huge deficits, that might be bad management...

And of course an event like Sept 11th, literally wiping out a trillion dollars of economic growth would also have to be taken into account.

I assumed the Times article was sarcastic.

That's the only thing that makes sense.

Ezra,

Are these figures adjusted for inflation?

I'm actually surprised that Reagan apparently ekes out a lead over Carter. Back in the 2004 election, I was fond of repeating the sound bite that every Democratic administration since Roosevelt beats every Republican administration in job growth. I had thought economic growth was the same, but apparently not.

To those who doubt that presidents matter: what are the odds that job growth or economic growth would be almost universally better in administrations run by one party just by chance? Granted, congress matters too, sometimes more than presidents. It would be interesting to create a model that took as its two independent variables the ruling congressional party and the party of the president, and assigned weights to these variables as factors in economic growth. Then create other models for job growth, stock market growth, etc.

Of course, no measured relationship is static in political economy and the weights would not tell us what is going to happen in the future....but if you were to make a bet, you shouldn't bet against those trends unless you have good reason to believe something fundamental has changed about the respective economic policies.

Democrats consistently miss opportunities to sell their overall economic superiority. It's amazing how little this overwhelming fact has sunk in to the popular consciousness, as evidenced by this Times reporter.

If I calculated correctly:

The odds that every presidency held by one party would surpass every presidency held by another party in job growth over 10 presidencies purely by chance is 1 in 1,024.

This actually understates it, since I include Nixon/Ford and Kennedy/Johnson as 1 presidency each. If I hadn't, we would have had the same pattern for 12 presidencies, and the odds of that happening by chance are 1 in 4,096.

The odds for the economic growth picture are slightly less impressive. There is a 1 in 32 likelihood that out of 7 presidencies the top 2 would be Democrats while the bottom 3 would be Republicans purely by chance (I'm excluding the Reagan/Carter near tie from consideration). Are the Democrats that lucky, or is something else going on?

Something for the media to ponder....or not.

If you limit "the economy" to "the incomes of the top 0.1%," I suspect Bush II does quite well. I'm not sure if he does as well as Reagan or Clinton, but I bet he blows Carter, Bush II, Kennedy/Johnson, and Nixon/Ford out of the water.

Actually, a rivision: I'm not sure he beats Kennedy/Johnson either -- economic growth was just so fast that the top 0.1% may have done better than under Bush II.

One could logically argue that the Presidents actual economic affect is felt more in the next Presidents term.

Clinton was President after 12 years of Republican rule. Did Clinton have more affect on the economy then the twelve years prior to his inaugaration day???

Did Clinton raise tax rates to Pre-Reagan levels??

Wow, people--miss the point much?

Ezra was just pointing out--with an easy-to-read, color-coded bar graph for those who, like the NYT writer, can't see the freaking obvious and insist on writing hyperbolic distortions--that the rate of growth during the Bush II presidency was the second-lowest of all recent presidents in near-direct contradiction to the statement in the linked article which said growth under the Bush junta is something other presidents would envy.

Nowhere did I read or infer that Ezra claims a president has a direct and exclusive effect on said growth. Although my old economics teacher used to claim presidents did indeed affect the economy for better or worse, I am, like others here, of the mind that it's a very complex equation, many of the factors of which are beyond the control of the president and sometimes beyond the control of any single human being, period.

Presidents have virtually no influence on the short-term rate of economic growth!

I have an entirely different theory about this chart. Growth is in decline, period. Clinton merely presided over a stock market bubble bequeathed to him by Reagan's tax policies and the move to blow up the market through the imposition of 401K style retirement plans at work. It's a "growth effect" that hasn't really carried through.

Bush I was a one-termer, who presided over a relatively normal recession brought on by normal business cycles, *without* the benefit of a stock market bubble. The real roll out in 401K plans only happened in the 1990s, ie., it started under Republicans but it hit critical mass in the 1990s.

The *negative* part of that was hyper-cost control in businesses as a result of intensified interest in the *finance* economy and making moeny in the market-- now "everyone was doing it"-- not just the Gordon Gekko types from the 80s. There were tons and tons layoffs in the 1990s. That's when, for example, Wall Street players went after GM's unions for ostensibly dragging down *their* proftis. Corporate workplaces cut mid level management, leading to massive restructuring in office work (these were decent jobs). This was ratched up another notch or 3 during Bush II, after the bubble economy that benefitted Clinton popped, producing the real income disparities we're looking at today. A lot of "our" investment money went abroad after that bubble popped, and hasn't returned to the domestic business economy, although it's made some individuals rich.

The 1990s were not Clinton's fault, but he's always spun it to be an unmitigated good when it wasn't. His taking credit for it is also ridiculous because it had practically nothing to do with him either way.

Moving forward, though, I think our new administration needs to take the corrupution in financial markets under control. It destabilizes our domestic economy, and that of the world. These people are destroying our national reputation. That means regulation.

So there is a role for the next president and their administration if they have enough balls to take it. The Clintons have a truly awful record in this regard. Chelsea is hedge fand manager today, so, I don't see Momma reigning her business in if need be. They look like advocates for financial mayhem.

This is my number one objection to electing another Clinton. The only person lower on my list is Romney.

This graphic is meaningless without adjusting it for inflation!

litbrit,

You're the one who's missing the point. You can't infer anything meaningful about the merits of a president's economic policies from short-term growth rates.

In any case, Dean Baker's rankings are dubious at best. Average annual percentage change in GDP is not a reliable measure of total economic growth across a presidential term, still less a reliable measure of economic growth per capita, which is the more relevant measure of living standards.

I'm uncertain what this chart is useful for other than poking partisan sticks in partisan eyes.

Marking growth by President(ial) term isn't very useful as a means of comparing growth controlled or controllable by Presidents given the length of lag in the economy's response to stimulus.

For example, the recession of 1981-82: who is "responsible" for this? Reagan, who was President beginning Jan. 1981, or Carter, who lay the groundwork? As analyzed, Carter and Reagan are indistinguishable - something that any honest person (Obama-style) should admit is not accurate. The difference between malaise and 'morning in America' is not merely marketing.

(Clinton is just a smidgen better than Carter? Poor Jimmy, who knew things were so good?)

Try starting the clock at May 28th, 2003, when Bush's tax plan was finally (and fully) enacted. It's beyond absurd to count his first two years against his total when his domestic agenda hadn't even been implemented.

Off topic, yes, but someone else started it!

Seems to me that what follows from the original post and this comment section is that the question is both too complex and too long term to attribute growth during a Presidential term, let alone whether that growth was spurned by the President himself.

But I just don't understand the view that the President has zero affect on the economy. A president and his/her policies absolutely affect the economy, both long and short term. Even if a president did nothing but sit on his finger and spin for 4 years, that would still affect the way people spend, save or invest their money.

Too small of a data set to draw any conclutions.

If this graph were to be adjusted for inflation, it would be bigger.

Funny enough, I just today came across this link to historical (real, inflation-adjusted) GDP data:

http://www.neatideas.com/data/data/GDPC96.htm

and popped it into Excel. Unless I did something wrong, here is how it comes out, in terms of average annual GDP growth over the term of their presidencies (ie like up until Kennedy was shot and Nixon quit):

JFK 5.14%
LBJ 4.80%
Clinton 3.57%
Carter 3.44%
Reagan 3.41%
Ford 3.40%
Nixon 2.64%
Bush II 2.63%
Ike 2.33%
Bush I 1.92%

(Bush II's numbers are up to the 3rd Q of 2006, so they may be overly optimistic)

Finally, regarding the assertion that presidents have no effect or control over short term GDP growth, does anyone remember late 2002 to mid 2003, when it became obvious that our great leader was about to throw us into a war of choice? That kind of irrationality tends to throw a damp towel on hiring and subsequent economic activity. Check the historical job growth numbers if you need proof.

Don't blame Carter for the 1980/81 recession. Carter inherited double digit inflation from Nixon/Ford. Volker was put into place and the federal funds rate went over 20% in 1980. Considering that Bernanke thinks a half point drop will stop the current slide into recession, I can only assume that a 20% rate forced the recession that got Reagan elected.

Since 1952, under the Republican’ts,:

Real GDP growth is slower
Inflation is higher
Employment growth is lower
Interest rates are higher
The national debt grew faster
Personal income and spending grew more slowly
Energy prices were higher
Productivity growth is lower
The current-account balance was three times worse
The gross national savings rate was less than half as much
The misery index was worse
and,
Federal government revenue was higher
Federal spending was MUCH higher
Which means, Federal deficits were much larger.

Did I mention that this all holds true regardless of who controls congress and the senate?

Bottom line: Republican’ts are bad for your wealth.