How does Obama economy rank with other presidents?

President Obama might be a savior of the economy or have one of the worst records ever, depending on your viewpoint. But when you put all the aspects of his economic performance together, how does his record really stack up compared with the jobs done by other presidents since World War II?

It’s an important question for the 2016 election because we need to know where Obama’s policies can be associated with success, if at all, and where the economic course needs to be changed.

His detractors point to the low growth rate of the gross domestic product and the increase in the national debt. His defenders point to the reductions in the unemployment rate and the federal budget deficit, and to the rise in the stock market.

My book, “The President as Economist: Scoring Economic Performance from Harry Truman to Obama,” uses these and 12 other well-established indicators to calculate a performance score for each president going back to Truman. The top score is 100, zero is average, and negative scores are below average.

Obama comes in eighth out of the 12, but still records a positive score, indicating a roughly average performance. That is based on six full years of his record, from 2010 to 2016. (This analysis leaves two years to go, because I allowed one year for the effects from the previous administration to subside.)

That is not a stunning performance, but it is a major improvement over that of his predecessor, George W. Bush, whose economic score was significantly lower than even Jimmy Carter’s.

Kennedy had the best record, but it was only for three years. There was no normal business cycle – that is, a recession – during his short presidency. Truman is in second place; his performance was impressive because it was recorded over eight years.

It’s also important to look at the margins between the rankings. Compare the scores for Obama and Richard Nixon, for example. Though they follow each other in the rankings, Obama recorded a significantly stronger economic record than Nixon did. So did Bill Clinton, at No. 5, compared with Ronald Reagan, at No. 6. And though Obama is two places below Reagan, his economic score is not that much lower.

I’ve already mentioned a few of the strengths and weaknesses in the Obama economic record. Maintaining a low inflation rate, cutting the federal deficit by two-thirds, reducing the unemployment rate and expanding exports all boosted his score.

The big improvement in stock prices was another significant positive for both Reagan and Obama.

On the negative side, while GDP growth has been positive for 25 of the past 27 quarters, the rate of growth under Obama has not been stellar. In fact, at 2.1 percent, it is the fourth-lowest growth rate of any president’s and below the postwar average of 2.9 percent.

It is true that the unemployment rate has plummeted under Obama, a very good thing. It is also true that labor participation has fallen considerably. That fact moderates the unemployment accomplishment.

The average share of federal debt, its increase, the average budget deficits and the balance of trade are also significant negatives for Obama, just as they were for Reagan and the Bushes. Obama has had one positive area relating to the budget that the others didn’t have – the reduction of the deficit. Bush’s 2009 budget deficit of $1.4 trillion was nearly half (47.4 percent) of the total budget. Obama’s 2015 deficit was $438 billion, or 12.5 percent of the total budget.

Obama’s record also has to be seen in the context of a couple of larger economic phenomena: the need to reduce consumer debt that had soared under George W. Bush along with excessive real-estate inventory, and the below-average growth in the global economy after the financial crisis. Both proved to be sustained drags on the U.S. economy, but were no fault of Obama’s.

What is the takeaway then on Obama’s economic performance? When you take the slow global growth and domestic consumers’ retrenchment on debt into account, the record emerging from his rather calm and cautious approach is one to build on, not one to be cast aside.

This story was originally published September 8, 2016 at 5:03 AM with the headline "How does Obama economy rank with other presidents?."