Forbes reports:
Supporters of President Barack Obama, such as one of his campaign donors Robert Deitrick, an Ohio financial advisor often quoted in Forbes and elsewhere, insist that the Obama economy has been much more robust than Ronald Reagan’s. Are they right?
Let’s look at some numbers. President Reagan entered office in a period of high inflation which was stamped out by high interest rates that in turn led to the 1982 recession. His job-creation record after that may fairly be termed outstanding: nearly 20 million more Americans were employed when he left office than when the recession ended. Overall, including the recession on his watch, Reagan’s net job growth over eight years was 16.1 million.
There's more:
GDP under Reagan was turbocharged compared to the Obama years. The Reagan years brought annual real GDP growth of 3.5 percent – 4.9 percent after the recession. In inflation-adjusted 2009 dollars, GDP jumped from 6.5 trillion at the end of 1980 to 8.61 trillion at the end of 1988. That’s a 32 percent bump. As Peter Ferrara pointed out on Forbes, it was the equivalent of adding the West German economy to the U.S. one.
Under Obama, GDP up to June 30, 2014 has grown an anemic 9.6 percent, total . Reagan-era growth was far more than double the Obama rate.
Ah, but did all of that Reagan bounty trickle down to ordinary Americans, though? Yes. Real (inflation-adjusted) median household income shot up some ten percent in the Reagan years. It has flatlined under Obama.
An article well worth your time.
