Every party in a political year claims to be the one that will boost employment.

The adjacent graph shows unemployment rates for the USA by year for 1901-2021. Blue indicates Democratic (D) rule and red indicates Republican (R). Darker colors show years in which a ruling party experienced rising unemployment.

Unemployment declined in 76 of 121 years, 43 times under Democrats and 33 times under Republicans.

Under Democrats unemployment declined 43 times and rose 13 times. Under Republicans it rose 32 of 65 times.

Thus rising unemployment in any year was over twice as likely under Republican administrations (32:13), and Democratic eras experienced employment gains three times as often as losses (43:13 vs 33:32).

Unemployment fell in 43 years of (D) administrations compared to 33 years of (R) administrations, a difference of 30%.

In sum, claims that Republican policies are conducive to lower unemployment are not supported by these 121 years of data.

All employment analysis should consider ratios, not workforce size. The number of employed persons tends to grow by the addition of new workers through population growth and immigration regardless of government policy. In addition, it is likely that non-political factors influenced employment at least as much as government decisions.