Reagan was Best Job Creating President in Post WWII Era

Take a look at the graphic. As a percentage of jobs created in the workforce Reagan rules. Bill Clinton created the most number of jobs but by then there were more people in the workforce so as a percentage of new jobs created he falls short of Reagan.

Another thing to notice is that Obama's job creation record was really anemic, given he was president for two terms and took over at the bottom of a recession with unemployment hitting 10%. In other words there was a lot of gains to be had--the only direction he could go was up--but he failed. Along these same lines, George W. Bush's record was severely punished because he took the brunt of job losses in 2008 which lowered his rating.

You can see that in only two years Trump is halfway towards equally Obama's two term records, in both percentage and gross number of jobs created.


Fact Check: The Best & Worst Presidents for Job Growth Since World War II

 

I wondered about that about Eisenhower's years too. I figure that Truman's era got credited with employing most of the WWII vets. Another factor was that a portion of the jobs created during FDR's era were to women and when the men returned from the war the jobs simply transferred and not many new ones were created.

Another data point one that sticks out is the low number of jobs created during JFK's tenure. Even Gerald Ford created more jobs than JFK and he was president for less time. Also George H.W. Bush's numbers don't look very good, but I suppose after the Reagan years there was essentially full employment.