President Joe Biden recently reached the midway point of his four-year term in the White House. In Tuesday’s State of the Union address, he boasted of sharp job growth in his first two years in office.
“We have created a record 12 million new jobs — more jobs created in two years than any president has ever created in four years,” Biden said.
While Biden’s statement is accurate, the job creation was mainly fueled by a post-pandemic recovery.
Though some economists dismiss the influence of presidents when it comes to job creation and economic growth, how do Biden’s job numbers compare to his predecessor Donald Trump?
Trump inherited the longest economic expansion in U.S. history. In his first two years in office, there were 4.5 million new jobs created, according to figures from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
So despite Trump’s strong start, Biden created more than two-and-a-half times the number of jobs as Trump in their first two years in office.
In December 2020, the economy lost 268,000 jobs and then bounced back the next month with 494,000 created — a momentum boost for Biden entering the White House in January 2021.
The economy under Trump had ultimately sputtered and he presided over the worst labor market in decades. In Trump’s four-year term, there were 3 million fewer jobs than when he took office. The pandemic lockdowns, which began in late March 2020, played a major role in Trump’s poor job numbers, but in 2019 there was weak job creation of under 2 million new jobs for the year.
Trump’s predecessor Barack Obama finished his eight-year presidency with 11.6 million jobs created after beginning his term amid the Great Recession of 2008 — the most severe economic downturn since the Great Depression of the 1930s.
In Obama’s final 36 months in office, the economy saw 8.1 million jobs created. In Trump’s first 36 months in office, the economy saw 6.6 million jobs created.
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