Overall Average: +1.52M jobs/year (1950-2025)
Key Findings:
📊 Central Tendencies:
- Mean: +1.52M jobs/year
- Median: +2.01M jobs/year
- The median is higher than the mean because extreme job losses (recessions) pull the average down
📈 Job Gains vs Losses:
- 62 years had job gains (81.6%)
- 14 years had job losses (18.4%)
🔵🔴 By Political Party:
- Democrat years: +2.31M jobs/year average (36 years)
- Republican years: +0.80M jobs/year average (40 years)
📅 By Decade:
- 1950s: +0.89M/year
- 1960s: +1.48M/year
- 1970s: +1.70M/year
- 1980s: +2.08M/year (strong growth)
- 1990s: +2.11M/year (Clinton boom)
- 2000s: +0.72M/year (dot-com bust + Great Recession)
- 2010s: +1.65M/year (recovery)
- 2020s: +1.50M/year (COVID volatility)
Extremes:
- Best: 2022 (+6.25M jobs) – Post-COVID recovery
- Worst: 2021 (-9.76M jobs) – COVID impact
The +1.52M average provides good context for the chart – any year above this line is above-average job creation, and the 1980s-1990s were particularly strong decades for employment growth!