Dems Outperform GOP on managing the economy

Supporting an early 2010 blog by Kissweb, dutchman comments on the Hufffington Post

that there is no proof that Republican presidents - in aggregate - have done better than Democratic ones in managing the economy.

Listed below is the post WWII Economic performance, by political party, summarized: (all results are annualized to reflect compounding, and go back to 1947, when the source data compiled at the Bureau of Economic Analysis - www.bea.gov - begins)

Real GDP Growth:

Democratic Presidencies: 3.59% per year
Republican Presidencies: 2.46%

Per Capita, Real GDP Growth:

Democratic Presidencies: 2.30% per year
Republican Presidencies: 1.25%

Deficit-adjusted, Per Capita, Real GDP Growth:

Democratic Presidencies: 0.98% per year
Republican Presidencies: -2.48%

Jobless Rate:

Democratic Presidencies: 5.45%
Republican Presidencies: 5.93%

Growth in the Federal Debt:

Democratic Presidencies: 4.18%
Republican Presidencies: 8.12%

Inflation-adjusted Growth in the S&P 500:

Democratic Presidencies: 9.31%
Republican Presidencies: 3.69%

In short, when Reagan asked if you are better off now than you were during the previous presidency, in most cases where Democrats were in office the answer was "yes", while for every Republican since Eisenhower, the answer has been "no".