Jan 12 2009
US Unemployment Rate by Party in Power
The Presidential election is over but the blame game for current and past economic woes continues. The charts below show historic monthly unemployment rates for the last 60 years and are color coded by Party in Power. The 4 charts highlight unemployment rates by Presidency, majority in the Senate and House, and the Perfect Storm - when one party controls the Presidency and both chambers of Congress.
There is enough ammunition here for both sides. Fight it out amongst yourselves.
Note: A reminder to non-Americans who universally associate red with their local left-lib parties: Red= Republican and Blue= Democratic. Go figure.
Click on a chart to enlarge.
US Unemployment Rate by Presidency
US Unemployment Rate by Majority in Senate
US Unemployment Rate by Majority in House of Representatives
The Perfect Storm : US Unemployment Rate when the Presidency, Senate, and House are controlled by the Same Party
So, I guess we can avoid long-term (decade over decade) increases in unemployment as long as we have at least a few more Democrats as Republicans.
I like the graphs. They’re very interesting. I’m surprised no one yet has made a comment. I’m glad I’ll be the first. The first graph is the most telling. The others don’t seem to show anything very positive or negative about either party. The others are pretty random. The first graph seems to suggest that out of the 15 terms that we get the following:
Y D/R Change
48 D -1.0% (Slightly better)
52 R +1.5% (Slightly worse)
56 R +2.0% (Worse)
60 D -1.0% (Slightly better)
63 D -2.0% (Better)
68 R +2.0% (Worse)
72 R +2.0% (Worse)
76 D 0.0% (Same)
80 R 0.0% (Same)
84 R -1.8% (Better)
88 R +1.8% (Worse)
92 D -1.8% (Better)
96 D -1.5% (Slightly better)
00 R +2.0% (Worse)
04 R +2.0% (Worse)
I think there is a clear picture here. It looks like generally speaking Republicans have undone the good work of Democrats and gone even further to create a general worsening in the unemployment rate. But lets get a hard objective number. If we add these numbers up by party over these 60 years we get:
Republicans have raised unemployment by 11.5% points
Democrats have lowed the unemployment by 7.3% points
Republicans have held the office more years than Democrats so lets get the effect of each on average for a 4-year term:
Republicans have raised unemployment by 1.3% points per 4-year term
Democrats have lowed the unemployment by 1.2% points per 4-year term
So, I guess we can avoid long-term (decade over decade) increases in unemployment as long as we have a more or less even number of Democrats as Republicans.
Well, I guess I spoke too soon. There does seem to be interesting effects in the other graphs, not just in the first graph. They are not as strong as that of the presidents but they are there. I had heard on CNN some months ago that a study showed that Democratic presidents and Republican congress seems to yield the best economy. From what I can see here, at least with respect to unemployment, the best is the perfect Democratic storm. The Democratic president had an effect of lowering unployment by 1.2 percentage points per 4 years. The perfect democratic storm had the effect of lowering it by 1.6, which is better. However, Democratic prsidents without the perfect storm have lowered the unemployment by only 1.4% points per 4 years, which is less than the perfect storm Democratic presidents. This means the best combination is in fact the perfect democratic storm. By the way, I had to eyeball all the reading from the graphs. If you can check my numbers by crunching your data that would be great.
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Senate Majority
This one looks interesting.
R 80th 0.0
D 81st +0.3 Worse
R 82nd-83rd -0.5 Better
D 84th-96th +2.5 Worse
R 97th-99th -0.5 Better
D 100-103rd -1.3 Better
R 104-106th -1.0 Better
D 107th +1.7 Worse
R 108-109th -1.6 Better
D 110th +2.5 Worse
Republican Senates have lowered unemployment by 3.1% points over 20 years
Democrat Senates have raised the unemployment by 5.7% points over 41 years
Getting the effect of each on average for 4 years (two terms):
Republican Senates have lowered unemployment by 0.6% points per 4 years
Democrat Senates have raised the unemployment by 0.5% points per 4 years
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House Majority
This one doesn\’t show much.
Republican Senates have lowered unemployment by 0.7% points over 16 years
Democrat Senates have raised the unemployment by 3.2% points over 45 years
Getting the effect of each on average for 4 years (two terms):
Republican Senates have lowered unemployment by 0.18% points per 4 years
Democrat Senates have raised the unemployment by 0.28% points per 4 years
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Perfect Storm
Republican Storms have raised unemployment by 0.5% points over 5.5 years
Democrat Storms have lowered the unemployment by 4.9% points over 12 years
Getting the effect of each on average for 4 years:
Republican Storms have raised unemployment by 0.36% points per 4 years
Democrat Storms have lowered the unemployment by 1.6% points per 4 years
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Feuding Branches (Presidents with congresses that are not of the same party)
Harried Republicans have raised unemployment by 9.7% points over 30.5 years
Harried Democrats have lowered the unemployment by 2.7% points over 8 years
Getting the effect of each on average for 4 years:
Harried Republicans have raised unemployment by 1.36% points per 4 years
Harried Democrats have lowered the unemployment by 1.4% points per 4 years