This statistic shows the average annual change in real GDP per capita in the United States from President Hoover to Obama, as of 2011. The biggest economic growth happened during Franklin D. Roosevelt's presidency. The Real Gross Domestic Product per capita increased by 5.25 percent each year.

Additional information on President Barack Obama’s first term economic policy performance

“It’s the economy, stupid” as the now famous saying by former President Bill Clinton goes is often used to demonstrate the importance continuants place on the economy’s performance. Appointed to President of the United States in 2008, President Obama entered the job in the early stages of a global economic crisis. The unemployment rate in the United States since 1990 demonstrates that Obama oversaw a reduction in unemployment rate since an initially sharp increase to over 9 percent in 2009 and 2010. Prior to the reduction, public approval of President Obama and the Republicans in congress in handling the economy shows that the public’s trust in Obama waned from 61 percent in February 2009 to 42 percent in November 2011. The fluctuation of America’s economy meant that Obama’s first term saw him reach an average of 76 thousand private sector jobs created per month as of June 2012, leaving him sixth in private sector job creation on the list of post-war presidents.

As leader of the most economically influential country on the planet, praise and criticism of Obama’s economic performance is also a global issue. In 2012, opinion on Obama’s management of global economic issues by country demonstrates the variety in opinion held in and across countries. While countries such as Britain and Germany whose economies appeared to be recovering held Obama’s economic policy in a positive light, opinion was more negative in Egypt and Greece were the economic situation was less optimistic.

In 2023 the real gross domestic product (GDP) of the United States increased by 2.5 percent compared to 2022. This rate of annual growth indicates a return to economy normalcy after 2020 saw a dramatic decline in the GDP growth rate due to the the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, and high growth in 2021.

What does GDP growth mean?

Essentially, the annual GDP of the U.S. is the monetary value of all goods and services produced within the country over a given year. On the surface, an increase in GDP therefore means that more goods and services have been produced between one period than another. In the case of annualized GDP, it is compared to the previous year. In 2023, for example, the U.S. GDP grew 2.5 percent compared to 2022.

Countries with highest GDP growth rate

Although the United States has by far the largest GDP of any country, it does not have the highest GDP growth, nor the highest GDP at purchasing power parity. In 2021, Libya had the highest growth in GDP, growing more than 177 percent compared to 2020. Furthermore, Luxembourg had the highest GDP per capita at purchasing power parity, a better measure of living standards than nominal or real GDP.

The Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in the United States expanded 3 percent in the second quarter of 2025 over the previous quarter. This dataset provides the latest reported value for - United States GDP Growth Rate - plus previous releases, historical high and low, short-term forecast and long-term prediction, economic calendar, survey consensus and news.

As of the first quarter of 2025, the GDP of the U.S. fell by 0.5 percent from the fourth quarter of 2024. GDP, or gross domestic product, is effectively a count of the total goods and services produced in a country over a certain period of time. It is calculated by first adding together a country’s total consumer spending, government spending, investments and exports; and then deducting the country’s imports. The values in this statistic are the change in ‘constant price’ or ‘real’ GDP, which means this basic calculation is also adjusted to factor in the regular price changes measured by the U.S. inflation rate. Because of this adjustment, U.S. real annual GDP will differ from the U.S. 'nominal' annual GDP for all years except the baseline from which inflation is calculated. What is annualized GDP? The important thing to note about the growth rates in this statistic is that the values are annualized, meaning the U.S. economy has not actually contracted or grown by the percentage shown. For example, the fall of 29.9 percent in the second quarter of 2020 did not mean GDP is suddenly one third less than a year before. In fact, it means that if the decline seen during that quarter continued at the same rate for a full year, then GDP would decline by this amount. Annualized values can therefore exaggerate the effect of short-term economic shocks, as they only look at economic output during a limited period. This effect can be seen by comparing annualized quarterly growth rates with the annual GDP growth rates for each calendar year.

This data package includes the underlying data to replicate the charts, tables, and calculations presented in The US Revenue Implications of President Trump’s 2025 Tariffs, PIIE Briefing 25-2.

If you use the data, please cite as:

McKibbin, Warwick, and Geoffrey Shuetrim. 2025. The US Revenue Implications of President Trump’s 2025 Tariffs. PIIE Briefing 25-2. Washington: Peterson Institute for International Economics.

The United States recorded a Government Debt to GDP of 124.30 percent of the country's Gross Domestic Product in 2024. This dataset provides - United States Government Debt To GDP - actual values, historical data, forecast, chart, statistics, economic calendar and news.

Adding to national debt is an inevitable fact of being President of the United States. The extent to which debt rises under any sitting president depends not only on the policy and spending choices they have made, but also the choices made by presidents and congresses that have come before them. Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush President Ronald Reagan increased the U.S. debt by around **** trillion U.S. dollars, or ****** percent. This is often attributed to "Reaganomics," in which Reagan implemented significant supply-side economic policies in which he reduced government regulation, cut taxes, and tightened the money supply. Spending increased under President George W. Bush in light of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. To finance the wars, President Bush chose to borrow the money, rather than use war bonds or increase taxes, unlike previous war-time presidents. Additionally, Bush introduced a number of tax cuts, and oversaw the beginning of the 2008 financial crisis. Barack Obama President Obama inherited both wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the financial crisis. The Obama administration also did not increase taxes to pay for the wars, and additionally passed expensive legislation to kickstart the economy following the economic crash, as well as the Affordable Care Act in 2010. The ACA expanded healthcare coverage to cover more than ** million more Americans through programs like Medicare and Medicaid. Though controversial at the time, more than half of Americans have a favorable view of the ACA in 2023. Additionally, he signed legislation making the W. Bush-era tax cuts permanent.

This data package includes the underlying data to replicate the charts and calculations presented in The International Economic Implications of a Second Trump Presidency, PIIE Working Paper 24-20.

If you use the data, please cite as:

McKibbin, Warwick, Megan Hogan, and Marcus Noland. 2024. The International Economic Implications of a Second Trump Presidency. PIIE Working Paper 24-20. Washington: Peterson Institute for International Economics.

The Politbarometer has been conducted since 1977 on an almost monthly basis by the Research Group for Elections (Forschungsgruppe Wahlen) for the Second German Television (ZDF). Since 1990, this database has also been available for the new German states. The survey focuses on the opinions and attitudes of the voting population in the Federal Republic on current political topics, parties, politicians, and voting behavior. From 1990 to 1995 and from 1999 onward, the Politbarometer surveys were conducted separately in the eastern and western federal states (Politbarometer East and Politbarometer West). The separate monthly surveys of a year are integrated into a cumulative data set that includes all surveys of a year and all variables of the respective year. The Politbarometer short surveys, collected with varying frequency throughout the year, are integrated into the annual cumulation starting from 2003.

Graph and download economic data for Federal Surplus or Deficit [-] as Percent of Gross Domestic Product (FYFSGDA188S) from 1929 to 2024 about budget, federal, GDP, and USA.

As numerous studies in the US and elsewhere document, voters hold incumbents accountable for the economy. However, our knowledge of the conditions that allow voters to do so remains incomplete. In particular, most findings about economic voting come from studies of modern economies (post World War II). Modern economies have a host of characteristics that seem to lend them-elves to economic voting. Their governments play a large role in the economy and have the Keynesian toolset necessary to influence conditions. Their voters are educated and have access to rich economic data from ubiquitous media. Are these and other modern conditions necessary for economic voting? Or, would voters still hold politicians accountable even under adverse conditions? Using economic measures now available back to the 1790s, we study economic voting from the earliest days of the US Republic when none of these conditions were met. Voters, we find, appear to judge incumbent presidents on the economy all the way back to George Washington. Consistent with this pattern, we also find that the economy appears to shape presidents' decisions to run again throughout US history. These findings support recent comparative evidence that economic voting is pervasive across a variety of contexts.

United States The Economist YouGov Polls: 2024 Presidential Election: Donald Trump data was reported at 46.000 % in 29 Oct 2024. This stayed constant from the previous number of 46.000 % for 22 Oct 2024. United States The Economist YouGov Polls: 2024 Presidential Election: Donald Trump data is updated weekly, averaging 43.000 % from May 2023 (Median) to 29 Oct 2024, with 61 observations. The data reached an all-time high of 46.000 % in 29 Oct 2024 and a record low of 38.000 % in 31 Oct 2023. United States The Economist YouGov Polls: 2024 Presidential Election: Donald Trump data remains active status in CEIC and is reported by YouGov PLC. The data is categorized under Global Database’s United States – Table US.PR004: The Economist YouGov Polls: 2024 Presidential Election (Discontinued). If an election for president were going to be held now and the Democratic nominee was Joe Biden and the Republican nominee was Donald Trump, would you vote for...

This paper assesses whether presidents will heighten the usage of cheerleading rhetoric about the economy that uses a positive tone in response to changes in the housing market. The time series analyses of information available between 1963 to 2005 indicate presidents increase economic cheerleading in response to positive changes in the housing market.

As of November 2020, ** percent of respondents said they think the U.S. economy will get worse if Donald Trump is reelected president in 2020. However, **** percent said that they believe the U.S. economy will stay the same.

Keyword counts from US Presidential State of the Union Addresses and Presidential Budget Messages. This was done using the Python scripts provided under https://github.com/JeremySilver/KeywordCountsPresidentialMessages. The raw text data is from The American Presidency Project (UCSB), with some Presidential Budget Messages being extracted from US Federal Budget documents available through FRASER (a digital library of U.S. economic, financial, and banking history) or, for the more recent documents the website of the White House.

The data headings are:

pid: in most cases, this is the index for the text document as archived on The American Presidency Project website. In some cases, this was the filename of a plain-text file read directly.

year: Year that the message was delivered.

date: Date that the message was delivered.

name: Name of the US President delivering the message.

count_of_all_words: Count of all words in the document.

count_of_keywords: Count of all keywords encountered in that document.

Keyword specific columns - three per keyword. For example, for the 'energy' keyword, the 'energy' column gives the number of times the 'energy' keyword was counted in the message, 'energy_pct_of_keywords' gives this count as a percentage of all keywords, and 'energy_pct_of_all_words' gives this count as a percentage of all words

Below is the list of keywords that match when the search is applied to a dictionary file containing over 99,000 US English words.

energy: 'energy'

tax: 'nontaxable', 'overtax', 'overtaxed', 'overtaxes', 'overtaxing', 'surtax', 'surtaxed', 'surtaxes', 'surtaxing', 'surtaxs', 'tax', 'taxable', 'taxation', 'taxations', 'taxed', 'taxes', 'taxing', 'taxpayer', 'taxpayers', 'taxs'

defense: 'defend', 'defense'

education: 'education'

employment: 'employ', 'employable', 'employe', 'employed', 'employee', 'employees', 'employer', 'employers', 'employes', 'employing', 'employment', 'employments', 'employs', 'underemployed', 'unemployable', 'unemployed', 'unemployeds', 'unemployment', 'unemployments'

research: 'research', 'researched', 'researcher', 'researchers', 'researches', 'researching', 'researchs'

shooting: 'shooting'

space: 'space'

nuclear: 'nuclear'

natural resources: 'natural resources'

racism: 'racism', 'civil rights'

crime: 'crime', 'crimes', 'criminal', 'criminally', 'criminals', 'decriminalization', 'decriminalizations', 'decriminalize', 'decriminalized', 'decriminalizes', 'decriminalizing'

environment: 'environment', 'environmental', 'environmentalism', 'environmentalisms', 'environmentalist', 'environmentalists', 'environmentally', 'environments'

religion: 'faith', 'god', 'prayer', 'religion'

health: 'health', 'healthful', 'healthfully', 'healthfulness', 'healthfulnesss', 'healthier', 'healthiest', 'healthily', 'healthiness', 'healthinesss', 'healths', 'healthy', 'unhealthful', 'unhealthier', 'unhealthiest', 'unhealthy'

terror: 'terror', 'terrorism', 'terrorisms', 'terrorist', 'terrorists', 'terrorize', 'terrorized', 'terrorizes', 'terrorizing', 'terrors'

war: 'war', 'warrior', 'warriors', 'wars'

economy: 'economic', 'economical', 'economically', 'economics', 'economicss', 'economy', 'economys', 'microeconomics', 'microeconomicss', 'socioeconomic', 'uneconomic', 'uneconomical'

jobs: 'jobs'

business: 'agribusiness', 'agribusinesses', 'agribusinesss', 'business', 'businesses', 'businesslike', 'businessman', 'businessmans', 'businessmen', 'businesss', 'businesswoman', 'businesswomans', 'businesswomen'

drugs: 'drugs', 'narcotics'

inflation: 'inflation'

climate: 'climate'

science: 'science', 'sciences', 'scientific', 'scientifically', 'scientist', 'scientists'

gun: 'gun', 'gunfire', 'gunman', 'guns', 'handgun', 'rifle', 'shotgun'

tech: 'biotechnology', 'biotechnologys', 'technical', 'technological', 'technologically', 'technologies', 'technologist', 'technologists', 'technology', 'technologys'

military: 'military'

security: 'security'

housing: 'housing'

pollution: 'pollution'

The dictionary file used is a standard file among Linux systems, and the version used was provided with version 7.1-1 of the Ubuntu 'wamerican' package. Two extra phrases, which do not appear in the dictionary file, are added to the list: 'civil rights' (under the 'racism' keyword) and 'natural resources' (under the 'natural resources' theme).

Recent efforts by Baker, Bloom, and Davis (2013) make it possible to evaluate whether changes in economic policy uncertainty have any bearing on the actions taken by political officials. This current project assesses whether economic policy uncertainty in the United States compels the U.S. president to increase the linguistic and substantive simplicity of public remarks. In an attempt to either decrease rising economic policy uncertainty, or stop the occurrence of economic policy uncertainty altogether, the president can choose to discuss issues in a very simple way. Time series analyses of monthly information spanning between 1993 and 2013 indicate that an increase in the economic policy uncertainty index results in an increase in presidential rhetorical simplicity. This provides an initial indication that the rhetorical strategy of linguistic and substantive simplicity employed by presidents can be shaped by economic conditions.

As of 2022, former President Bill Clinton was the president who created the most jobs in the United States, at **** million jobs created during his eight year term in office. Former President Ronald Reagan created the second most jobs during his term, at **** million.

President Trump's ten percent tariffs on imports from China, which went into effect on February 4, 2025, are projected to have negative effects on both the GDP of China and the U.S. However, the effect on China's GDP is expected to be stronger and result in a contraction by 0.16 percent in 2026 and 2027 compared to the baseline scenario. In contrast, the U.S. GDP is only projected to be 0.07 percent lower than in the baseline scenario in 2027. If China retaliates, the negative effects on both countries might be stronger.

During the period beginning roughly in the mid-1980s until the Global Financial Crisis (2007-2008), the U.S. economy experienced a time of relative economic calm, with low inflation and consistent GDP growth. Compared with the turbulent economic era which had preceded it in the 1970s and the early 1980s, the lack of extreme fluctuations in the business cycle led some commentators to suggest that macroeconomic issues such as high inflation, long-term unemployment and financial crises were a thing of the past. Indeed, the President of the American Economic Association, Professor Robert Lucas, famously proclaimed in 2003 that "central problem of depression prevention has been solved, for all practical purposes". Ben Bernanke, the future chairman of the Federal Reserve during the Global Financial Crisis (GFC) and 2022 Nobel Prize in Economics recipient, coined the term 'the Great Moderation' to describe this era of newfound economic confidence. The era came to an abrupt end with the outbreak of the GFC in the Summer of 2007, as the U.S. financial system began to crash due to a downturn in the real estate market.

Causes of the Great Moderation, and its downfall

A number of factors have been cited as contributing to the Great Moderation including central bank monetary policies, the shift from manufacturing to services in the economy, improvements in information technology and management practices, as well as reduced energy prices. The period coincided with the term of Fed chairman Alan Greenspan (1987-2006), famous for the 'Greenspan put', a policy which meant that the Fed would proactively address downturns in the stock market using its monetary policy tools. These economic factors came to prominence at the same time as the end of the Cold War (1947-1991), with the U.S. attaining a new level of hegemony in global politics, as its main geopolitical rival, the Soviet Union, no longer existed. During the Great Moderation, the U.S. experienced a recession twice, between July 1990 and March 1991, and again from March 2001 tom November 2001, however, these relatively short recessions did not knock the U.S. off its growth path. The build up of household and corporate debt over the early 2000s eventually led to the Global Financial Crisis, as the bursting of the U.S. housing bubble in 2007 reverberated across the financial system, with a subsequent credit freeze and mass defaults.

Interactive chart of historical data comparing the level of gross domestic product (GDP) with Federal Debt.