As noted previously in this forum, presidential press secretary Jay Carney was correct to note during a recent media briefing that the White House does not create jobs.
Still, one hopes that a presidential administration would pursue policies that allow private-sector job creation to flourish.
In the latest National Review, Kevin A. Hassett compares job growth in the administrations of every president since 1890 who has dealt with an official recession at least as long as our recent “Great Recession.” You might be surprised to learn the United States has faced seven of them.
It is perhaps no surprise that Herbert Hoover’s job-creation record is the worst, since his first two and a half years encompassed the dawn of the Great Depression. But it is surprising, given how terrible recessions were before World War I, that Barack Obama is solidly entrenched in second place. During his first two and a half years, employment has dropped about half a percentage point. Other than Hoover and Obama, no modern American leader has presided over negative job growth for a comparable period.
Obama’s supporters might suggest that the jobs picture would have been far worse without the president’s big-government, high-regulation policies. But past president were far less ambitious in hard times, and saw far better results. To put that in perspective, consider that government spending has increased relative to GDP by 3.1 percentage points under President Obama. In 1900, total federal spending was 3.1 percent relative to GDP.
