Fact Check: Has Joe Biden Created More Jobs Than Any Other President?

President Joe 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.

While inflation has recently cooled, 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.

However, even amid such stormy forecasts, one Democratic congressman took to Twitter this week to applaud the economic record of the president, comparing his job growth figures with those of his predecessors.

The Claim

A tweet by Rep. Bill Pascrell (D-N.J.), posted April 16, 2023, viewed 40,000 times, included a graphic that stated: "PRESIDENT BIDEN: HIGHEST JOB CREATION FOR A PRESIDENT EVER".

A subheading said: "(Monthly job creation average in thousands during entire presidency)" with a graph beneath that said Biden had created an average of 485,000 jobs per month. This was followed by Bill Clinton (239,000), Jimmy Carter (215,000), Ronald Reagan (168,000), Barack Obama (121,000), George H.W. Bush (53,000), and George W. Bush (14,000). Trump ranked the lowest with minus 59,000 on average.

Pascrell tweeted: "Democrats build economies; republicans destroy them."

The Facts

Figures from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics show employers added 311,000 jobs in February 2023, almost 90,000 more than economists surveyed for Bloomberg News had predicted.

That February figure was revised up to 326,000 after the Bureau released new numbers for March which estimated 236,000 jobs were created last month.

Whether the Democrats can rightly claim that Biden has had the highest average job performance, however, is another matter.

The White House has previously made similar claims, which PolitiFact explored in 2022 and 2023. While Pascrell's tweet and graphic include more information than these examples, it still demands examination.

There are a number of ways that we might assess the claim "Highest Job Creation For A President Ever".

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?

While the claim "Highest Job Creation For a President Ever" alone may be open to interpretation, Pascrell prominently states the data set is for "Monthly job creation average in thousands during entire presidency".

There isn't a data set explicitly named "Monthly job creation average in thousands during entire presidency".

To support the claim, a media officer for Pascrell Jr. sent Newsweek figures from the Bureau of Labor Statistics for "Employment, Hours, and Earnings from the Current Employment Statistics survey" among "All employees, thousands, total nonfarm, seasonally adjusted".

The St. Louis Fed, which reproduces government labor data, defines "non-farm" as employees excluding "proprietors, private household employees, unpaid volunteers, farm employees, and the unincorporated self-employed".

This accounts for 80 percent of workers who contribute to U.S. Gross Domestic Product.

Seasonal adjustment removes data "subject to fluctuations due to seasonal changes in weather, major holidays, and the opening and closing of schools."

Newsweek analysis of these figures indeed showed that average monthly job growth from January 2021 to March 2023 came to 485,000, just as the graph in Pascrell's tweet showed.

To claim they are the highest figure for a "president ever" should really be for a president in recorded history (as available records only reach as far back as President Franklin D. Roosevelt). Nonetheless, Biden's figures here are higher than any other leaders in raw numbers.

However, Biden is of course only mid-way through his term, which makes a comparison with his predecessors somewhat premature.

Additionally, as was noted by PolitiFact, other metrics, such as the percentage growth in the job market since the start of his presidency, suggest Biden has fallen behind predecessors including Clinton and Obama.

Furthermore, most of the presidents mentioned in the graph shared by Pascrell faced a shared disadvantage, with each of them (apart from Clinton) overseeing the weight or tailwinds of economic recession during their terms.

While the U.S. economy met the technical definition for a recession in 2022, meaning two consecutive quarters of falling real GDP, economists disagreed whether all conditions for one had been met, particularly as the job market retained strength.

This caused controversy last year when the White House was falsely accused of redefining "recession".

Donald Trump, whose entry stands out for having made a net job creation loss during his presidency, also deserves some reappraisal. Crucially, the pandemic caused significant damage to the job market after unemployment fell to a 50-year low in 2019 under Trump.

Had the same force majeure landed during Biden's presidency, it is likely the data shared by Pascrell would have been significantly altered.

Moreover, while the graph shared on Twitter only mentioned presidents of the past 46 years, it stands to reason that Biden would have a better shot of creating more job growth in presidential history due to the advantage of increased population size.

Nonetheless, although the exact figures may be disputable, Biden has led monthly average job growth against other presidents on record, albeit with quite a number of caveats.

The Ruling

Needs Context.

Figures provided by Pascrell showed that seasonally-adjusted monthly job growth, on average, has been higher under Biden than any other president since those figures were recorded.

However, Biden (unlike his predecessors) has not withstood a widely agreed-upon recession, nor has he finished his term, which makes this comparison somewhat premature.

The graph shows Trump to have the worst job record of any presidency which, although true, should be tempered by the effect the pandemic had on the jobs market which would likely have altered figures had Biden experienced a similar event.

FACT CHECK BY Newsweek's Fact Check team

Subject Area Categories : U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (bls.gov)