Massive job loss during COVID greatly skewed this chart negatively for Trump and then positively for Biden as the job market rebounded.
It’s been a remarkably strong stretch for the U.S. economy under both presidents.
www.forbes.com
The U.S. added 15.8 million jobs during Biden’s first 42 months in office, compared to a 2.7 million contraction during Trump’s presidency,
according to total nonfarm payrolls, the most-cited measure of total employment which encompasses most American workers.
Similarly the unemployment rate rose 1.7 percentage points from 4.7% to 6.4% under Trump, declining 2.1 percentage points under Biden to the latest reading of 4.3%.
However, the gross data paints a wholly incomplete picture of the labor market’s strength under both presidents, as the COVID-19 pandemic upended the global economy beginning in 2020, causing U.S. unemployment to briefly spike to a record 14.8% in April 2020 after a whopping 22 million-worker contraction from Feb. 2020 to April 2020.
That skewed Trump’s numbers negatively and Biden’s positively as the labor market returned to relative normalcy following the unprecedented shock.
In fact, the first three-quarters of Trump’s tenure were marked by a remarkably strong job market, with nonfarm payrolls growing by about seven million between Jan. 2017 and Feb. 2020 and unemployment declining over the same period from 4.7% to 3.5%, at the time the lowest mark since 1969, later surpassed by Jan. and April 2023’s 3.4%.