Talk:U.S. economic performance by presidential party

perception vs. reality

many are no doubt aware that for decades the Republican Party has been very successful in promoting the narrative that they are better stewards of the economy than are Democrats. for many, this narrative has become so pervasive that it is accepted practically as gospel. if people want better economic growth, job creation and stock market returns, they obviously should vote Republican, the narrative goes.

alas, decades of data do not support this narrative, across the board for nearly all major indicators, as shown with many reliable sources in this article. now, I understand this realization might cause cognitive dissonance for some, leading them to reflexively reject the data and conclude this article must be biased, POV, weaselly and unbalanced, so they tag it as such. what they've been led to believe with superior messaging for decades simply cannot be wrong, they think. but it is. as the lead plainly states, it's not clear why it is true, only that it is.

I recommend editors identify specific phrasing and sources they find biased, POV, weaselly and unbalanced so we can resolve them and remove the tags. soibangla (talk) 23:29, 21 August 2024 (UTC)

Based on the comments it seems like both sides are biased here. The 2016 paper (on which much of the data is based), clearly states that a large part of the delta can be explained by oil shocks and war. This is not mentioned in the article's introduction. Instead the introduction is phrased in a way that implies democratic policy was likely the driver. 2A02:8108:483F:D734:19B2:59CC:B5BF:D217 (talk) 23:05, 23 August 2024 (UTC)

I will remove the tags if articulable arguments other than WP:IDONTLIKEIT are not soon presented. soibangla (talk) 03:58, 22 August 2024 (UTC)

"the narrative that they are better stewards of the economy" Is this a belated April Fools' Day joke? I live in Greece and my overall impression is that the Republican terms in office are always associated with a financial crisis. See for example the List of recessions in the United States:

• • Warren G. Harding: Depression of 1920–1921.
  • Herbert Hoover: Great Depression.
  • Dwight D. Eisenhower: Recession of 1953, Recession of 1958, Recession of 1960–1961.
  • Richard Nixon: Recession of 1969–1970, 1973–1975 recession.
  • Gerald Ford: 1973–1975 recession.
  • Ronald Reagan: Early 1980s recession in the United States.
  • George H. W. Bush: Early 1990s recession in the United States.
  • George W. Bush: Early 2000s recession, Great Recession.
  • Donald Trump: COVID-19 recession. Dimadick (talk) 09:58, 24 August 2024 (UTC)

  It's one thing to say that the economy has performed better under Democratic presidents, but quite another to attribute this performance to their policies. Considering most Democratic politicians are economically illiterate, it'd be remarkable if they were just repeatedly defying conventional economic wisdom with huge success, and without setting off an intellectual earthquake in the economics departments at major universities. Since that clearly hasn't happened, there's something else going on here.

  It is far more likely the case that Democratic presidents have simply been the beneficiaries of the ways in which voter preferences align with business cycles (ie from one expansion and contraction to the next). When the economy is in a downturn, voters rely more on the state, whereas economic growth politically favors the market economy. Since Democrats offer social insurance and Republicans are more market-oriented, it would make sense that Democrats come to power during recessions, and then benefit from the recovery (and then, when the economy is strong, the Republicans come to power, and rinse and repeat). This is not just my opinion either, but there's some recent research more or less making this case.[1]

  The average business cycle lasts around 5 and a half years, and presidential terms are 4 -8, which also seems to align rather well with this theory. Jonathan f1 (talk) 19:38, 12 January 2025 (UTC)

Please define "economically illiterate", and remember that presidents don't control the economy. And understanding the flaws of supply-side economics does not constitute "illiteracy". Sumanuil. _{(talk to me)} 22:17, 12 January 2025 (UTC)

Yeah, but anyone using terms like "supply-side economics" as a pejorative likely doesn't have a deep background in economics. What I would qualify as 'economically illiterate' is an administration that pursues policies based on heterodox economic perspectives. Again, there's no evidence that the pattern covered in this article is mainly the result of the specific policy positions of Democrats, and I'm well aware that presidents don't have direct control over the economy -that's kind of the whole point here.

The research I linked makes a compelling case that it's merely the product of voters making rational choices between the pro-state and pro-market parties based on business cycles, much like the choices individuals make in their own personal financial planning. When the economy is weak, they vote in the statist party (Democrats); when the economy is strong, they favor pro-market Republicans. This would naturally produce a pattern over time where you have stronger economic metrics under Democratic administrations, irrespective of specific policy outcomes. Jonathan f1 (talk) 20:20, 13 January 2025 (UTC)

there's no evidence that the pattern covered in this article is mainly the result of the specific policy positions of Democrats and the article doesn't contend it is, the article just shows that the pattern exists and leaves it at that. given the countless variables at play in the American economy, it would be a daunting task to ascribe specific policies to specific outcomes (e.g. "the tax cut, combined with the budget increase and the Fed rate cuts, caused a 0.3 percentage point increase in GDP growth") in any comprehensive way and I've never seen any economist attempt it. maybe soon someone can drop a trillion data points into an AI blender that can figure it all out. so, while debating state vs. market economies and such is very interesting and all, I don't think it would lead to material improvement of the article. I think we should keep the status quo and leave it to readers to ponder the whys. soibangla (talk) 23:54, 13 January 2025 (UTC)

Proposal to broaden topic

The article topic (which is strangely selected, with no corresponding articles describing other aspects of economic performance by political party) introduces WP:UNDUE into the article, as only the presidential party is considered in the article. As there is no corresponding article about U.S. economic performance by congressional party, nor a more general one about U.S. economic performance by political party in general, this article should be broadened to concern "U.S. economic performance by political party" rather than just presidential party. Anotherperson123 (talk) 05:19, 16 October 2024 (UTC)

Someone switched the party names

Yesterday this article was about how economic performance tends to be better under Democrats, and this morning it says it tends to be better under Republicans. The entire article has changed, and the party names have been switched. (E.g. 10 of the last 11 recessions started under Republican leadership, not democrat). I can see that someone edited it 4 hours ago so I'm guessing they changed the article. Please correct it to the previous version. Below is another Wikipedia article with correct information.

https://simple.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._economic_performance_under_Democratic_and_Republican_presidents 67.171.164.112 (talk) 16:28, 22 November 2024 (UTC)

Biden GDP growth

the flash estimate comes out Thursday, the second on February 27, and the final on March 27

I recommend we wait until the final so we can set it once and forget it soibangla (talk) 02:42, 27 January 2025 (UTC)

Glaring issues must be addressed

I'm not a Republican so I'm not even disagreeing with the premise of the article, but I've noticed several issues with this article that really need to be addressed.

First of all, this article overly relies on one study by Alan and Watson, to the point where the whole article is just a summarization of this one particular study, or a reference of every news source that mentions the study. More studies and observations need to be looked at and cited to contribute to the article.

Also, there are very little details about the overall economic performance for each presidential administration, as this article only looks at the difference between the start and end of each administration. This is problematic when taking into consideration some data observations. Many Republicans will argue for example that the economy saw massive growth throughout most of Trump's first administration before crashing during COVID (which was caused by factors that Trump had little control of), creating the appearance that Trump harmed the economy only because his term just so happened to end during the COVID recession.

Sources are clearly cherry-picked for the "Commentary" section and it seems more like a MSNBC op-ed than a Wikipedia article.

Perhaps the biggest issue I have with this article is how it repeatedly falls for a correlation does not imply causation causation fallacy by coming to the conclusion that Democratic administrations handle the economy better than Republicans in the lead, when the reality is much more complex. Presidential administrations have little control the economy, rather, much of it revolves around global events such as war and oil shocks. This is why Biden cannot be directly blamed for the inflation we all experienced in 2022, as it was a worldwide phenomenon. Thus, presidents cannot be linked so strongly to the economy as a whole. It is also important to note that many of the sources cited in this article acknowledge that no one has a clear conclusion as to why the economy is supposedly better under Democratic administrations than Republican administrations. Furthermore, the sample size used (we have only had seven presidents in the past forty years) in this observation is too small to come to such a confident conclusion.

I would appreciate it if someone out there is willing to address these issues. Heydude109 (talk) 02:03, 11 March 2025 (UTC)