Why Bill Clinton’s amazing statistic about jobs and Democrats matters

When Bill Clinton spoke at the Democratic National Convention this week, he shared an economic claim that seemed implausible:

In other words, over the last 35 years, employers have added roughly 51 million jobs in the United States, and 50 million of them — 98% — have been created during Democratic administrations.

Is that true? Actually, yes.

The claim comes with caveats (the former president didn’t have to start the clock in 1989, for example), but according to the data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, 51.5 million jobs have been added since January 1989 and roughly 1.3 million of them were created while a Republican president sat in the White House.

How can that be? Well, there have been four recessions in the United States over the last 35 years: The first began in early 1990, during George H.W. Bush’s Republican administration; the second began in the spring of 2001, during George W. Bush’s Republican administration; the third (and most severe) began in late 2007, also during George W. Bush’s Republican administration; and the fourth began in the spring of 2020, during Donald Trump’s Republican administration.

During that same time period, there have also been periods of rapid American job growth amid economic recoveries: Clinton’s second term, Barack Obama’s second term and Joe Biden’s first term.

Given all of this and the dramatic job losses associated with the 2007 and 2020 recessions, it’s not too surprising that the Democrats-vs.-Republicans competition is lopsided.

But why stop at the last 35 years? The Washington Post’s Philip Bump published a good analysis in the wake of Clinton’s convention speech and found:

Longtime readers might recall that this has long been a point of curiosity for me. Marketwatch, for example, published a piece on the subject in 2015, noting that in the previous seven decades, economic growth, job growth and stock market performance have all been better under Democratic presidents.

The Atlantic had a related report in 2017, adding that over the last 70 years, “the U.S. economy has been better, across many metrics, when a Democrat has been the president.” Writing for Slate way back in 2008, Michael Kinsley did some similar research.

In case this isn’t obvious, since those reports were published, the results have become more favorable to Democrats, not less. It’s no wonder Clinton took the opportunity to brag.

I am mindful of polls showing that many voters tend to see the Republican Party has more credible on the economy. I’m also aware of the evidence from recent history that shreds these misplaced assumptions.