PolitiFact verifies that Democratic presidents top Republican presidents in job creation

http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2012/sep/06/bill-clinton/bill-clinton-says-democratic-presidents-top-republ/

Sept. 6, 2012

Are Democratic presidents better than Republican presidents at job creation? Former President Bill Clinton said so -- forcefully -- in his speech to the Democratic National Convention in Charlotte.

"Since 1961, for 52 years now, the Republicans have held the White House 28 years, the Democrats 24," Clinton said. "In those 52 years, our private economy has produced 66 million private-sector jobs. So what's the jobs score? Republicans 24 million, Democrats 42 (million)." In the packed convention hall, it was one of the night’s biggest applause lines.

In 2010, we checked a similar claim from Rep. Carolyn Maloney, D-N.Y., who said that Democratic presidents "have been considerably more effective at creating private-sector jobs." After crunching the numbers back to President Harry Truman, we found that jobs did indeed grow faster under Democratic presidents when adjusted for a president’s years served in office. So we rated the claim True.

Clinton’s claim at the convention was worded differently, so we quickly re-crunched the numbers based on his specifications.

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Republicans

Richard Nixon: Increase of 7.1 million jobs
Gerald Ford: Increase of 1.3 million jobs
Ronald Reagan: Increase of 14.7 million jobs
George H.W. Bush: Increase of 1.5 million jobs
George W. Bush: Decline of 646,000 jobs

Total: Increase of 23.9 million jobs under Republican presidents

Democrats

John F. Kennedy: Increase of 2.7 million jobs
Lyndon B. Johnson: Increase of 9.5 million jobs
Jimmy Carter: Increase of 9.0 million jobs
Bill Clinton: Increase of 20.8 million jobs
Barack Obama: Increase of 332,000 jobs

Total: Increase of 42.3 million jobs.

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