U.S. GDP Growth by President

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Current Values

Under Barack Obama (2009 to 2017), the strongest calendar year of real GDP growth was 2.9% and the weakest was 1.6%. His term averaged 2.3% a year, with no year of contraction. That steady but modest record reflects a long recovery from the 2008 financial crisis, not a boom.

GDP growth is one of the most common ways to judge an administration’s economy, but the figures need careful reading. They depend on how growth is measured, which calendar years are credited to which president, and events that no White House controls.

What the Table Measures

Gross domestic product (GDP) is the market value of all final goods and services produced inside the United States during a period. The Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) publishes it. The figures here are real GDP’s percent change from the preceding year, from FRED, the St. Louis Fed’s database of BEA data.

Real vs. Nominal GDP

Nominal GDP is measured in current dollars, so it rises when prices rise even if the economy produces nothing extra. Real GDP removes the effect of price changes. BEA expresses it in “chained” dollars, a method that updates the price weights each year instead of fixing them to a single base year.

The difference matters most in inflationary periods. Consider a hypothetical year with 9% nominal growth and 6% inflation. Real growth is roughly 3%. Presidents who served during the high inflation of the 1970s would look far stronger on nominal figures than on the real figures used here.

The Annual Growth Formula

Each year’s growth rate in the table comes from one calculation:

Annual real GDP growth = (Real GDP this year ÷ Real GDP last year − 1) × 100

If real GDP were a hypothetical $20.0 trillion one year and $20.5 trillion the next, growth would be (20.5 ÷ 20.0 − 1) × 100 = 2.5%.

This compares the average level of output across one full year with the average across the previous year. It does not compare December with December. A recession that starts late in a year can therefore show up mostly in the following year’s figure.

Annual Growth vs. Quarterly Headlines

The GDP numbers in news headlines are usually quarterly figures expressed at a seasonally adjusted annual rate. BEA takes the change from one quarter to the next and scales it up as if that pace lasted a full year:

Annualized quarterly rate = ((This quarter’s real GDP ÷ Last quarter’s real GDP)^4 − 1) × 100

A quarter in which output rose about 1% from the prior quarter is reported as roughly 4% annualized, so a headline quarter of 4% does not mean the year grew 4%. Strong quarters are often followed by weaker ones, so annual growth is much less volatile than the quarterly series. All the presidential figures are annual.

How a Term Average Is Built

The “Average growth” column is a summary of the annual growth rates credited to each president. Two choices shape it.

Which years count. Presidents take office in January (in March before 1937), so the inauguration year is mostly the new president’s but was shaped by the old one’s economy. Any term table has to assign each calendar year to one person. Some lists credit the inauguration year to the incoming president. Others start the count the following year to allow for policy lags. The ranges in the Term column show who served when. They do not mean that every calendar year at both ends was counted.

Simple vs. compound average. A simple average adds the annual rates and divides by the number of years. A compound annual growth rate (CAGR) measures the steady rate that would turn starting output into ending output:

CAGR = (Ending real GDP ÷ Starting real GDP)^(1 ÷ years) − 1

The two can differ when growth swings sharply. Take a hypothetical economy that shrinks 10% one year and grows 10% the next. The simple average is 0%, but output ends 1% below where it started (0.9 × 1.1 = 0.99), so the compound rate is slightly negative.

These choices explain why published lists of GDP growth by president often disagree by a few tenths of a point, and sometimes by more for terms with deep recessions or wartime surges. Compare presidents within one consistent set of figures, not across lists built on different rules.

Revisions

BEA revises GDP estimates as fuller source data arrive, and it periodically carries out comprehensive revisions that can change decades of history. A growth rate cited years ago may differ slightly from today’s figure for the same year. Small gaps between presidents, a tenth or two of a percentage point, can move with revisions.

How to Read the Columns

• Average growth is the typical annual pace during the years credited to the term. It is the best single number for comparing presidents, but it hides volatility.
• Best year and worst year show the range. A narrow range, like Obama’s 1.6% to 2.9%, means steady conditions. A wide range, like Truman’s -11.6% to 8.7%, means the economy went through a shock.
• Years of contraction counts calendar years when real GDP fell. This is not the same as counting recessions. The National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) dates recessions by monthly peaks and troughs across several indicators, so a short recession can sit inside a year that still shows positive annual growth, and a single recession can spread across two calendar years.

Reading the three together gives a fuller picture than any one figure. Gerald Ford’s 3.3% average, for example, comes with a best year of 5.4% and a worst year of -0.2%. His short term began in a recession and ended in a recovery.

GDP Growth Under Obama

Obama took office in January 2009 in the middle of the Great Recession. NBER dates it from December 2007 to June 2009, making it the longest U.S. recession since World War II. It is widely considered the most severe downturn since the Great Depression.

The main policy responses were:

• The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. The Congressional Budget Office estimated its cost at about $831 billion over time, covering tax cuts, extended unemployment benefits, aid to states, and infrastructure and education spending.
• The auto industry rescue. Federal loans and managed bankruptcies supported General Motors and Chrysler.
• The Federal Reserve’s actions, which sat outside the president’s control. The Fed held short-term rates near zero and bought large amounts of bonds (quantitative easing) for much of his tenure.

The expansion that began in June 2009 lasted until February 2020. That made it the longest U.S. expansion on record. It was also one of the slowest. Economists have offered several explanations: the drag that follows financial crises, household debt reduction, government spending cuts after 2011, slower labor force growth as baby boomers retired, and weak productivity growth. Unemployment fell steadily from its 2009 peak, and inflation stayed low.

Obama’s role in ending the recession is still debated. Supporters credit the stimulus and the auto rescue. Critics point to the slow pace of recovery and the sharp rise in federal debt, driven by recession-era deficits.

Obama, Trump and Biden Compared

The averages are close, but the paths were very different.

Trump’s first term. The 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act lowered the corporate tax rate and individual rates. The administration also imposed tariffs on imports, including steel, aluminum and a wide range of Chinese goods. China responded with tariffs on U.S. exports, which hurt American farm and manufacturing exporters and raised costs for U.S. buyers. Then COVID-19 arrived. NBER dates the pandemic recession from February to April 2020. At two months, it was the shortest on record, but output fell at a pace not seen since the 1940s. Congress passed the roughly $2 trillion CARES Act in March 2020, which included stimulus payments, expanded unemployment benefits, small-business loans and a pause on federal student loan payments.

Trump’s range of -2.1% to 6.3% captures the pandemic contraction and the rebound that followed. His average sits close to Obama’s, but one row describes a slow, uninterrupted climb and the other a collapse and recovery.

Biden’s term. Biden took office during the pandemic and signed the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan in 2021. Growth stayed between 2.3% and 3.0% in the years credited to him. Inflation, however, rose to its highest levels in about four decades and peaked in 2022, driven by stimulus-boosted demand, supply chain disruptions, a shift in spending toward goods and an energy price spike after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The Federal Reserve raised interest rates 11 times starting in 2022. Inflation eased afterward, but high price levels remained a central public concern and shaped how households felt about an economy whose real growth looked healthy.

Trump’s second term. Trump began a second term in January 2025. It has no row because a term average needs completed years, and first-year results largely reflect conditions inherited from the previous administration. Early debates have centered on tariffs, tax policy, federal spending and trade relations.

Which President Had the Highest GDP Growth?

Franklin D. Roosevelt has the highest average in the table at 9.3%. He also has the single strongest year, at 18.9%. That pace came from two sources: recovery from an extremely low starting point after the Depression, and the massive expansion of federal spending for World War II. No peacetime economy has grown at anything close to that rate.

Behind FDR, the highest averages belong to:

1. John F. Kennedy, 5.3% (with a worst year of 4.4%, the strongest floor in the table)
2. Lyndon B. Johnson, 4.9%
3. Bill Clinton, 3.7%
4. Ronald Reagan, 3.6%

Herbert Hoover has the lowest average at -7.3%. All four of his counted years were contractions, with the worst at -12.9%, the deepest of the Depression.

The fastest growth is not automatically the best economy. Economists often describe about 2% to 3% a year as a healthy, sustainable pace for a mature U.S. economy. Growth well above capacity can fuel inflation or asset bubbles, and steady growth near potential, with stable prices and low unemployment, is usually preferred to alternating booms and busts.

The Record Term by Term

Depression and War: Hoover, Roosevelt, Truman

Herbert Hoover (1929 to 1933). The stock market crash of October 1929 came in Hoover’s first year and opened the Great Depression, the deepest and longest downturn of the modern era. Hoover generally favored limited federal intervention and voluntary cooperation, and he vetoed some direct relief measures. He also signed the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act of 1930. It raised duties on thousands of imports and drew retaliation from trading partners, which deepened the slump in world trade. By 1933, unemployment had reached about 25%.

Franklin D. Roosevelt (1933 to 1945). FDR’s New Deal created jobs programs, banking reforms, infrastructure projects and Social Security. The economy grew strongly from 1934, but the recovery was interrupted in 1938 when spending was cut and the Fed tightened policy. That is the -3.3% worst year in his row. Economists still debate the New Deal’s net effect. Some credit it with speeding recovery. Others argue parts of it slowed the rebound. Wartime production after 1941 finally pushed output and employment far above pre-Depression levels. The cost was heavy: higher taxes and the largest percentage increase in the national debt of any presidency, driven mainly by the war.

Harry S. Truman (1945 to 1953). Truman’s -11.6% worst year is a demobilization figure, not a depression. When wartime spending collapsed, measured output fell sharply even as consumer spending and civilian employment held up far better than many had feared. The economy also went through a recession in 1948 to 1949. The Marshall Plan, about $12 billion to rebuild Western Europe, supported demand for American exports. Spending on the Korean War from 1950 lifted growth, producing the 8.7% best year in his row. Truman’s average of 2.0% mixes these extremes.

The Postwar Expansion: Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson

Dwight D. Eisenhower (1953 to 1961). Eisenhower’s eight years included three recessions: after the Korean War ended in 1953, in 1957 to 1958 following Fed rate increases, and again starting in 1960. He favored balanced budgets over fiscal stimulus. His signature economic program was the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1956, which funded the Interstate Highway System. Federal highway authorities put the system’s total cost at about $119 billion. His row shows a 2.8% average with two contraction years and a 7.1% best year.

John F. Kennedy (1961 to 1963). Kennedy took office as the 1960 to 1961 recession was ending. He increased defense and domestic spending, raised the minimum wage, expanded Social Security benefits and proposed broad tax cuts. His row is the most consistently strong in the table: 5.3% average, with growth never below 4.4%.

Lyndon B. Johnson (1963 to 1969). Johnson signed Kennedy’s tax cut in 1964 and launched the Great Society, including Medicare and Medicaid in 1965. At the same time, he escalated the Vietnam War. Combined domestic and military spending, with no matching tax increase until late in his term, kept growth high (4.9% average, no contraction years) but pushed inflation upward. That inflation set up the problems of the following decade.

Stagflation: Nixon, Ford, Carter

Richard Nixon (1969 to 1974). Nixon inherited rising inflation. In 1971 he imposed wage and price controls and a 10% import surcharge, and he ended the dollar’s convertibility into gold, a package known as the Nixon Shock. The controls distorted prices and did not tame inflation for long. The 1973 oil embargo added a supply shock. The result was stagflation: high inflation combined with weak growth and rising unemployment.

Gerald Ford (1974 to 1977). Ford took over during the 1973 to 1975 recession, then the worst since the 1930s. He signed a tax cut in 1975, and the economy recovered strongly, but inflation stayed high. His 3.3% average reflects that rebound.

Jimmy Carter (1977 to 1981). Carter faced persistent inflation and a second oil shock after the 1979 Iranian Revolution, with gasoline shortages and soaring prices. He deregulated airlines, trucking and oil prices. In 1979 he appointed Paul Volcker to lead the Fed. Volcker’s sharp rate increases to break inflation contributed to the brief 1980 recession, which shows up as the -0.3% worst year in Carter’s row.

Disinflation and Expansion: Reagan, George H.W. Bush, Clinton

Ronald Reagan (1981 to 1989). The Fed pushed the federal funds rate to about 20% in 1981 to break inflation, and the economy fell into the deep 1981 to 1982 recession, Reagan’s -1.8% worst year. Reagan’s program, known as Reaganomics, combined large income tax cuts, higher military spending, restraint in domestic programs and deregulation. Inflation fell sharply and growth rebounded, including a 7.2% best year. Federal deficits also widened, and the national debt nearly tripled in dollar terms. Critics link his era’s financial deregulation to the savings and loan crisis and argue his policies widened income inequality.

George H.W. Bush (1989 to 1993). Bush inherited the savings and loan crisis and signed a 1989 rescue law that eventually cost taxpayers well over $100 billion. A recession in 1990 to 1991, worsened by the oil price spike around the Gulf War, produced his -0.1% worst year. To reduce the deficit, he agreed to a 1990 budget deal that raised taxes and limited spending, despite his campaign pledge against new taxes. His average is 2.0%.

Bill Clinton (1993 to 2001). Clinton’s presidency fell almost entirely within the 1991 to 2001 expansion, then the longest on record. He raised taxes on high earners in 1993, signed welfare reform and the North American Free Trade Agreement, and presided over the first federal budget surpluses in decades, from fiscal 1998 to 2001. Technology investment and productivity growth drove much of the late-1990s boom, which ended with the dot-com bust. His 3.7% average, with no contraction years, is the strongest since Johnson.

Shocks and Recoveries: George W. Bush Onward

George W. Bush (2001 to 2009). Bush began with the 2001 recession and the September 11 attacks. He signed tax cuts in 2001 and 2003, created the Department of Homeland Security and launched wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. The housing bubble then burst, and the 2008 financial crisis caused the Great Recession. His row shows a 1.8% average and a -2.6% worst year. Tax cuts, war spending and crisis measures, including the Troubled Asset Relief Program, added heavily to the debt.

Business Cycles: Expansion and Contraction

The swings in the table follow the business cycle, the recurring rise and fall of economic activity. NBER’s Business Cycle Dating Committee is the recognized arbiter of U.S. recession dates. It defines a recession as a significant decline in activity spread across the economy and lasting more than a few months. It looks at employment, income, spending and production, not just GDP. The popular shortcut of “two consecutive quarters of falling GDP” is not NBER’s definition.

Expansions and Peaks

An expansion runs from a trough to the next peak. Output, employment and incomes rise, though the pace varies. A peak is the high point before activity starts to decline. Expansions end for many reasons. Some end because the Fed raises rates to fight inflation, as in 1981. Some end because a financial bubble bursts, as in 2001 and 2007. Others end with a sudden external shock, as in 2020. Expansions do not end simply because they have lasted a long time. The 2009 to 2020 expansion ran for more than a decade before the pandemic ended it.

Contractions and Troughs

A contraction runs from the peak to the trough, the low point before recovery begins. Postwar U.S. recessions have mostly lasted under a year and a half. The 2007 to 2009 recession lasted 18 months; the 2020 recession lasted two. The Depression-era contractions in Hoover’s row are far outside the modern range.

Recovery speed depends heavily on the cause. Recoveries after financial crises, where households and banks must repair balance sheets, have tended to be slower than recoveries from recessions triggered by Fed tightening. This is one reason Obama’s recovery years averaged less than Reagan’s despite starting from a deep downturn.

Where a recession falls in a term shapes the term’s average. A president who takes office at the bottom of a recession often gets strong rebound years. A president whose term ends in a downturn carries the drop. Neither outcome alone shows whether that president’s policies worked.

What Presidents Can and Cannot Control

Fiscal policy is shared. Taxes and spending are set by Congress, and the president proposes, negotiates and signs or vetoes. Tax cuts and spending increases tend to raise demand in the short run. Tax increases and spending cuts tend to lower it. A president whose party lacks a congressional majority may see little of an economic agenda become law; Truman, for example, got only parts of his domestic program through Congress.

Monetary policy belongs to the Federal Reserve. The Fed sets short-term interest rates and controls the money supply independently of the White House. Its decisions often have a larger short-run effect on growth than anything a president does. The 1981 to 1982 recession under Reagan and the 2022 rate increases under Biden were driven by Fed choices.

Policy works with lags. A tax change or spending program can take months or years to affect output fully. Infrastructure programs such as the interstate highway system paid off over decades. Part of what any president’s row measures is the delayed effect of predecessors’ decisions.

Presidents also influence trade, regulation and confidence. Tariffs, trade agreements, regulatory changes and executive actions affect growth. The direction and size of those effects are often debated, and they interact with conditions abroad.

Much is out of anyone’s control. Wars, oil shocks, pandemics, financial crises abroad, demographic change and technological shifts can outweigh policy. The oil shocks of the 1970s, the 2020 pandemic and the productivity boom of the late 1990s each shaped presidential records far more than any single program did.

Has the Economy Done Better Under Democrats or Republicans?

Taken at face value, the table favors Democratic presidents. As a simple illustration, treat each president’s average as one data point and weight every president equally, regardless of term length. The eight Democrats in the table average about 4.1%, and the eight Republicans about 1.4%.

That gap shrinks a lot once the two most extreme rows are set aside. Without Roosevelt (9.3%) and Hoover (-7.3%), the remaining seven Democrats average about 3.4% against about 2.7% for the remaining seven Republicans, a difference that depends heavily on which presidents and years are included and how they are weighted.

Academic research has found a similar Democratic advantage in growth over the postwar period, but it generally traces most of it to oil price shocks, productivity trends, global conditions and the timing of the business cycle, not to measurable differences in policy. With only 16 completed presidencies, a single war, depression or pandemic can swing a party’s average. The figures describe what happened under each party; they cannot show that the party caused it.

Why GDP Growth Is an Imperfect Presidential Scorecard

It measures output, not well-being. GDP counts production. It does not show who received the income, how wages moved or how secure households felt. Strong GDP growth can coexist with stagnant wages or rising inequality.

It ignores inflation’s effect on households. Real GDP removes inflation from output, but it does not capture the strain rising prices place on budgets. The early 2020s showed solid real growth alongside high public dissatisfaction over prices.

It is not per person. Total GDP grows faster when the population and labor force grow faster. Real GDP per capita is a better gauge of average living standards. Periods of slower population growth, such as the 2010s, look weaker on total GDP than they would per person.

It does not show the cost. Growth funded by deficits looks the same in GDP as growth driven by private investment. Roosevelt’s wartime surge and the borrowing in later administrations both raised debt that future taxpayers carry.

For a fuller assessment, economists look at GDP alongside unemployment, inflation, wage growth, productivity and the federal budget balance. They also ask what the economy was likely to do regardless of who held office.

Historical Data

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The Bottom Line

Anyone comparing presidents by GDP growth should use one consistent set of figures, since lists differ on which years count and how averages are built. Term averages also reflect Fed decisions, policy lags, wars, oil shocks and pandemics that no president controls. GDP growth is best read alongside unemployment, inflation, wages, productivity and the budget balance, not as a standalone scorecard of policy success.