Representative Bill Pascrell, a Democrat from New Jersey, posted to Twitter last week stating in all-caps: “PRESIDENT BIDEN: HIGHEST JOB CREATION FOR A PRESIDENT EVER” The tweet included a subheading that explained: “(Monthly job creation average in thousands during entire presidency)” and a graph that showed Biden had created an average of 485,000 jobs per month. The graph showed Biden’s predecessors, too: Bill Clinton (239,000 jobs per month); Jimmy Carter (215,000); Ronald Reagan (168,000); Barack Obama (121,000); George H.W. Bush (53,000); George W. Bush (14,000); Donald Trump (-59,000).
Pascrell concluded his tweet with “Democrats build economies; republicans destroy them.”
So, is it true? Has Biden created more jobs than any president ever?
The Economy Under Biden
Economically speaking, the Biden administration has been dealt some tough hands. Biden “oversaw several shocks to the U.S. economy in the first three months of 2023, such as the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank, amid talk among experts of a looming deep recession,” Newsweek reported.
Inflation, which was at a generational high, has started to cool. But nevertheless, “economists and analysts are warning that interest rate rises and a commercial real estate crisis are potential triggers of a greater economic downturn across the U.S. in the near future,” Newsweek reported. And against that backdrop, Pascrell tweeted his declarative statement, that Biden had created more jobs than any other president.
The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics did find that employers added 311,000 new jobs in February 2023, which is great – but whether Biden has achieved the highest job performance ever, is more complicated.
“There are a number of ways that we might assess the claim “Highest Job Creation For A President Ever,” wrote Tom Norton. “For example, does it include or exclude metrics such as full or part-time employment, contract employment, self-employment, or other employees that may not appear on non-farm payrolls?”
A deeper dive into the numbers did reveal that from January 2021 to March 2023, average monthly job growth of 485,000 – just like Pascrell’s graph claims. Yet “to claim they are the highest figure for a “president ever” should really be for a president in recorded history.” And records only extend back to President Franklin D. Roosevelt. “Nonetheless, Biden’s figures here are higher than any other leaders in raw numbers.”
Although, one wrinkle: Biden is only halfway through his term, whereas all the other presidents on the list finished one and two terms. So, Pascrell’s claim is premature, given that a lot could happen in the second half of Biden’s term.
Biden also has an advantage in that he is presiding over a bigger population than any of his predecessors. And Biden’s predecessors (with the exception of Clinton) had the disadvantage of working through recessions to create jobs. Didn’t Biden oversee a recession, too? Kind of. “While the U.S. economy met the technical definition for a recession in 2020, meaning two consecutive quarters of falling real GDP,” economists did not agree on whether circumstances in 2022 qualified as a recession – especially considering that the job market remained strong.
Regardless, “Biden has led monthly average job growth against other presidents on record, albeit with quite a number of caveats.”
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Harrison Kass is the Senior Editor at 19FortyFive. An attorney, pilot, guitarist, and minor pro hockey player, Harrison joined the US Air Force as a Pilot Trainee but was medically discharged. Harrison holds a BA from Lake Forest College, a JD from the University of Oregon, and an MA from New York University. Harrison listens to Dokken.
