Private-sector jobs grew far more under Democratic than Republican presidents, 1961-2012

Picture. A thousand words. Etc. The instant any Democrat uses this chart showing that between 1961 and 2012, the United States added 42 million private-sector jobs under Democratic presidents and 23.9 million private-sector jobs under Republican presidents, despite Republicans holding the presidency for 28 years during that period compared with 23 years for Democrats, PolitiFact will doubtless devote hundreds of words of dubious "context" to label it some form of untruth despite the clarity of the comparison. But whatever the relationship between correlation and causation here, this is a stark contrast:

Through April, Democratic presidents accounted for an average of 150,000 additional private-sector paychecks per month over that period, more than double the 71,000 average for Republicans.

Republican presidencies, though, saw slightly greater creation of public-sector jobs, which rose by 7.1 million under Republicans and 6.3 million under Democrats'a difference that would be entirely irrelevant if Republicans weren't always running around wailing about big government and demonizing public workers.

The presidents who averaged the most jobs created per month were Bill Clinton, at 217,000; Jimmy Carter, at 188,000; and Ronald Reagan, at 153,000. That's right. Jimmy Carter beat Ronald Reagan. The only president to preside over a cumulative loss of private-sector jobs was, of course, George W. Bush.