When polled by Gallup in Spring 2024, more than half of Americans reported that they worry “a great deal” about the economy. 12 Given the importance of the economy to voters, pollsters also closely track which party or presidential candidate is most trusted on the economy.
In April, the Economic Policy Institute (EPI) addressed a related question: which party has a better track record on the economy? Since 1949, EPI found a Democratic advantage across the board on a host of economic well-being measures.3 EPI found the greatest Democratic advantage in private-sector outcomes such as growth in business investment, jobs, and incomes before taxes. Inflation-adjusted household income growth was also faster on average and far more equal during Democratic presidential administrations, and the Democratic advantage is present for every income group, the rich as well as the working poor. (Box 1 contains a more detailed summary of the EPI findings for the national economy).
In this brief, we analyze Pennsylvania economic outcomes under Republican and Democratic presidential terms, emulating EPI’s choice of variables as much as possible given readily available state-level data. The economic indicators we examine are:
• Real Gross Domestic Product (GDP) starting in 1998.
• The unemployment rate beginning in 1976.
• Employment growth starting in 1976.
• Pennsylvania real wages starting from 1979.
• Median household Income in Pennsylvania from 1984 to 2019.
We find that all but one of these economic indicators performs better when a Democratic administration is in power nationally. (See Table 1 for full results). For real GDP in Pennsylvania, the average growth rate for Democratic presidents since 1998 is almost 2% whereas the growth for Republican presidents is only 1.3%. On average, the Pennsylvania unemployment rate is 0.3% higher during Republican presidential administrations. Pennsylvania’s annual employment growth is more than double under Democratic compared to Republican administrations. (Based on a 2012 KRC brief, and a review of the numbers since then, we also know that manufacturing employment growth has been much healthier during Democratic administrations.) Median household income in Pennsylvania has had a much higher average annual growth rate (1.9% compared to 0.8%) under Democratic presidents from 1984 to 2019 than Republican. Republican administrations had an advantage on one indicator: the real median wage. By contrast, earnings of Pennsylvania low-wage workers, defined as 10th percentile earners, grew much faster under Democratic administrations.
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