No single best president: 225 years of growth are ruled by wars, depressions and inherited cycles

Asked:

contrast and compare economic performance of American presidents from 1800 to 2024

42 source-defined executive periods, 1800–2024, from one harmonized dataset (Ecdat “USGDPpresidents”). Each row: average annual real GDP-per-capita growth (%), average CPI inflation (%), average unemployment (%), average federal surplus (% of GDP, negative = deficit), and the change in federal debt/GDP (percentage points).

Read with care: before 1929 GDP is reconstructed, not modern national accounting; unemployment sources change across eras (Lebergott, Romer, then BLS), so levels are not fully comparable over the whole span — favor postwar comparisons. Early CPI, fiscal and debt series are also historical reconstructions. Association is descriptive, not causal: Congress, the Federal Reserve, global events and inherited conditions matter, and calendar-year attribution can credit a transition year to one executive.

FDR's 8.36% average per-capita growth (156.6% cumulative) mixes Depression recovery and WWII with 13.12% unemployment, a 7.62%-of-GDP average deficit and debt/GDP up 50.3 points — the extreme, not a template. vincentarelbundock.github.io

Hoover is the floor: −6.39% a year, −24.0% cumulative, with −5.41% deflation and 11.34% unemployment. vincentarelbundock.github.io

Since 1953 the strongest per-capita growth averages are LBJ 3.87%, Biden 2.96% (pandemic-rebound heavy, with 4.94% inflation and a 7.38%-of-GDP deficit), Kennedy 2.70%, Clinton 2.66% and Reagan 2.53%; Clinton pairs growth with 2.60% inflation, a 0.73% deficit and debt/GDP down 9.0 points. vincentarelbundock.github.io

Price regimes differ wildly: Lincoln 17.52% wartime inflation, Wilson 10.19%, Carter 9.71%, against Monroe's −4.50% deflation — 19th-century prices behave nothing like the fiat-money era. Largest debt-ratio falls: Truman −43.0 points, Eisenhower −15.6; largest rises after FDR's +50.3: Trump +23.2, Obama +21.8, Wilson +21.7. vincentarelbundock.github.io

Every period, every measure

Click a header to sort. Negative surplus = deficit. — marks measures with fewer observed years than the period.

Data: Ecdat/Rdatasets “USGDPpresidents” (1790–2024), 42 executive-period rows covering calendar years 1800–2024. Growth is the arithmetic mean of year-over-year real GDP-per-capita change; cumulative growth compounds those rates; inflation is annual CPI change; surplus is federal surplus/GDP; debt change is last-minus-first debt/GDP within the period. Years are assigned by the dataset's executive field, so John Adams holds only 1800 and some short transitions are combined (e.g. “Taylor-Filmore”). Labels shown as supplied. Historical series before the modern statistical era are reconstructions.

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