Most GOP-devastating statistic in Bill Clinton's DNC speech confirmed by fact checker
Former President Bill Clinton on Wednesday used part of his speech at the Democratic National Convention to hit back at the notion that Republican presidents were better on the economy than Democratic presidents.
In particular, Clinton pointed to the record of job creation since the end of the Cold War under both Republican and Democratic presidents.
"You’re going to have a hard time believing this, but so help me, I triple-checked it,” Clinton said in the speech. “Since the end of the Cold War in 1989, America has created about 51 million new jobs. I swear I checked this three times. Even I couldn’t believe it. What’s the score? Democrats 50, Republicans one.”
Washington Post fact checker Philip Bump decided to fact check Clinton's claim and found that it was 100 percent correct.
"There have been six presidents since 1989, three from each party," wrote Bump. "Under the three Democrats — Clinton, Barack Obama and Joe Biden — there was a cumulative increase of 50 million more people working between the starts of their terms and the ends. Under the three Republicans — George H.W. Bush, George W. Bush and Donald Trump — the cumulative total was, in fact, only 1 million."
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Bump added that it would not be fair to say that the policies of Democrats and Republicans were directly responsible for the disparity in job creation, as external economic factors often contribute more to unemployment than whichever party holds the White House.
Nonetheless, Bump decided to try to make an apples-to-apples comparison of job growth under former President Donald Trump and under President Joe Biden by excluding the period where the COVID-19 pandemic hit the economy and put millions of Americans out of work.
"In 2018 and 2019, under Trump, the country added 4.3 million jobs. In 2022 and 2023, under Biden, it added 7.5 million jobs," he concluded. "You don’t have to be a sports whiz to see that seven puts you ahead of four, either."