Which party destroyed US manufacturing? You betcha!

Who is the party of business? It sure as shootin' ain't the Republican Party. Since 1949 when war and post-war gyrations had stabilized, manufacturing employment (in absolute numbers) has increased significantly under four Democratic administrations, and declined horribly under five Republican Presidents – period, stop, end of story.

Don't believe it? Forget theory, let's look at actual numbers from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. This is the number of workers employed in manufacturing from January of the start of an administration to January at the end. Numbers are rounded:

1949-1953 Truman UP 16%
1953-1961 Eisenhower DOWN 7%
1961-1969 Kennedy-Johnson UP 25%
1969-1977 Nixon-Ford DOWN 3%
1977-1981 Carter UP 4%
1981-1989 Reagan DOWN 3%
1989-1993 Geo H. W. Bush DOWN 7%
1993-2001 Clinton UP 2%
2001-2009 Geo W. Bush DOWN 26%

Compounded manufacturing jobs gain under Democrats, 1949-2001: UP 54%
Compounded manufacturing jobs loss under Republicans, 1953-2009 DOWN 45%

Had Republicans been in charge (of the Executive branch) in all years since 1949,and had been equally incompetent in management for manufacturing job growth when they actually were in charge, we would have less than one-fourth the number of jobs in manufacturing as we had in 1949. If Democrats had been in charge and had produced the same level of growth, we would have had 120% more jobs than we had then. That would be 18 million more jobs in manufacturing than we had at the start of 2009. Hmmm. Think maybe we'd be a little better off?