Funferal

What the presidency does to your income

Regular readers will know that I’m fascinated by economic statistics, the ones that pull trends out of masses of data. The Atlantic Monthly has a short piece on the economic impact of Democratic and Republican presidents across income. Interestingly, Democrats are generally better (in terms of income growth) for everyone up to the 95th percentile – that’s anyone earning under, roughly, $150,000 – while the Republicans are increasingly worse for you the further down the income ladder you are. The amazing thing, though, is that in election years (by which I think they mean Presidential election years) Republicans consistently outperform Democrats. Not only is there greater income growth, across the board, in those years when a Republican is in power, but during Democrat administrations income growth goes down in election years with those at higher income levels having negative growth. The Atlantic ask – and I echo – why should this happen?