| 1900 | R | R | R | | | |
| 1904 | R | R | R | | | |
| 1908 | R | R | R | | | |
| 1912 | R | D | R | | | |
| 1916 | D | D | D | | | |
| 1920 | D | R | R | | | |
| 1924 | R | R | R | | | |
| 1928 | R | R | R | Unemployment is present, widespread and increasing. . . We favor the adoption by the government, after a study of this subject, of a scientific plan whereby during periods of unemployment appropriations shall be made available for the construction of necessary public works and the lessening, as far as consistent with public interests, of government construction work when labor is generally and satisfactorily employed in private enterprise. . . We favor the adoption by the government, after a study of this subject, of a scientific plan whereby during periods of unemployment appropriations shall be made available for the construction of necessary public works and the lessening, as far as consistent with public interests, of government construction work when labor is generally and satisfactorily employed in private enterprise. | In 1921 the credit of our government was at a low ebb. We were burdened with a huge public debt, a load of war taxes, which in variety and weight exceeded anything in our national life, while vast unfunded intergovernmental debts disorganized the economic life of the debtor nations and seriously affected our own by reason of the serious obstacles which they presented to commercial intercourse. This critical situation was evidenced by a serious disturbance in our own life which made for unemployment. | |
| 1929 | R | R | R | | | Wall Street crash |
| 1932 | R | R | R | We advocate the extension of federal credit to the states to provide unemployment relief wherever the diminishing resources of the states makes it impossible for them to provide for the needy | True to American traditions and principles of government, the administration has regarded the relief problem as one of State and local responsibility. The work of local agencies, public and private has been coordinated and enlarged on a nation-wide scale under the leadership of the President. | |
| 1935 | D | D | D | | | Works Progress Administration created |
| 1936 | D | D | D | We believe that unemployment is a national problem, and that it is an inescapable obligation of our Government to meet it in a national way. | The only permanent solution of the unemployment problem is the absorption of the unemployed by industry and agriculture. . . Withdrawal of government from competition with private payrolls. | |
| 1940 | D | D | D | By public action, where necessary to supplement private reemployment, we have rescued millions from idleness that breeds weakness, and given them a real stake in their country’s well being. We shall continue to recognize the obligation of Government to provide work for deserving workers who cannot be absorbed by private industry. | The New Deal’s failure to solve the problem of unemployment and revive opportunity for our youth presents a major challenge to representative government and free enterprise. We propose to recreate opportunity for the youth of America and put our idle millions back to work in private industry, business, and agriculture. We propose to eliminate needless administrative restrictions, thus restoring lost motion to the wheels of individual enterprise. | |
| 1943 | D | D | D | | | Works Progress Administration closed |
| 1944 | D | D | D | | | |
| 1946 | D | D | D | | | Employment Act of 1946 |
| 1949 | D | D | D | | | Truman unveils Fairdeal |
| 1952 | D | D | D | The Democratic Administration prudently passed the Employment Act of 1946 declaring it to be national policy never again to permit large-scale unemployment to stalk the land. | | |
| 1956 | R | D | D | We repudiate the Republican stunting of our economic growth, and we reassert the principles of the Full Employment Act of 1946 | | |
| 1958 | R | D | D | | | Recession of 1958 |
| 1960 | R | D | D | The Democratic Party reaffirms its support of full employment as a paramount objective of national policy. . . Our economy must grow more swiftly in order to absorb two groups of workers: the much larger number of young people who will be reaching working age in the 1960s, and the workers displaced by the rapid pace of technological advances, including automation. Republican policies which have stifled growth could only mean increasingly severe unemployment, particularly of youth and older workers. . . We will provide the Government leadership necessary to insure that the blessings of automation do not become burdens of widespread unemployment. For the young and the technologically displaced workers, we will provide the opportunity for training and retraining that equips them for jobs to be filled. | | |
| 1964 | D | D | D | Full employment is an end in itself and must be insisted upon as a priority objective. | This Administration has failed to honor its pledges to assure good jobs, full prosperity and a rapidly growing economy for all the American people: . . . failing to reduce unemployment to four percent, falling far short of its announced goal every single month of its tenure in office . . .It has demonstrated its inability to measure up to the challenge of automation which, wisely guided, will enrich the lives of all people. | |
| 1968 | D | D | D | Democrats, however, were not satisfied. We saw—and were the first to see—that even sustained prosperity does not eliminate hard-core unemployment. We were the first to see that millions of Americans would never share in America’s abundance unless the people as a whole, through their government, acted to supplement what the free enterprise could do. . . For those who cannot obtain other employment, the federal government will be the employer of last resort, either through federal assistance to state and local projects or through federally sponsored projects. | The nation must look to an expanding free enterprise system to provide jobs. Republican policies and programs will encourage this expansion. . . To help the unemployed find work we will also inaugurate a national Job Opportunity Data Bank to report the number, nature and location of unfilled jobs and to match the individuals with the jobs. | |
| 1972 | R | D | D | Full employment—a guaranteed job for all—is the primary economic objective of the Democratic Party. The Democratic Party is committed to a job for every American who seeks work. Only through full employment can we reduce the burden on working people. We are determined to make economic security a matter of right. This means a job with decent pay and good working conditions for everyone willing and able to work and an adequate income for those unable to work. It means abolition of the present welfare system. . . Improved adjustment assistance and job creation for workers and employers hurt by foreign competition, reconversion of defense-oriented companies, rapid technological change and environmental protection activities. . . Move to a minimum wage of $2.50 per hour, which allows a wage earner to earn more than a poverty level income for 40 hours a week, with no subminimums for special groups or age differentials. | We stand for full employment a job for everyone willing and able to work in an economy freed of inflation, its vigor not dependent upon war or massive military spending. | |
| 1976 | R | D | D | Today, millions of people are unemployed. Unemployment represents mental anxiety, fear of harassment over unpaid bills, idle hours, loss of self-esteem, strained family relationships, deprivation of children and youth, alcoholism, drug abuse and crime. A job is a key measure of a person’s place in society—whether as a full-fledged participant or on the outside. Jobs are the solution to poverty, hunger and other basic needs of workers and their families. Jobs enable a person to translate legal rights of equality into reality. . . Consistent and coherent economic policy requires federal anti-recession grant programs to state and local government, accompanied by public employment, public works projects and direct stimulus to the private sector. In each case, the programs should be phased in automatically when unemployment rises and phased out as it declines. | | |
| 1978 | D | D | D | | | Full Employment Act signed |
| 1980 | D | D | D | We specifically reaffirm our commitment to achieve all the goals of the Humphrey-Hawkins Full Employment Act within the currently prescribed dates in the Act, especially those relating to a joint reduction in unemployment and inflation. Full employment is important to the achievement of a rising standard of living, to the pursuit of sound justice, and to the strength and vitality of America. | The Republican Party recognizes the need to provide workers who have lost their jobs because of technological obsolescence or imports the opportunity to adjust to changing economic conditions. In particular, we will seek ways to assist workers threatened by foreign competition. . . The Republican Party is committed to full employment without inflation. We will seek to provide more jobs, increase the standard of living, and ensure equitable treatment on the job for all American workers by stimulating economic growth. | |
| 1984 | R | D | R | We must have a growing economy if we are to have jobs for all Americans who seek work. But even in a growing economy, the pressures of competition and the pace of change ensure that while jobs are being created, others are being destroyed. . . a commitment to full employment. We believe the federal government must develop a major, comprehensive national job skills development policy targeted on the chronically unemployed and underemployed. We must launch special training programs for women who receive public assistance. We need to increase government procurement opportunities for small and minority firms and to encourage deposits of federal funds in minority-owned financial institutions. And to build for the future, the Democratic Patty calls Party calls for a new national commitment to education, which must include raising standards, insisting on excellence, and giving all children a chance to learn, regardless of race, income or sex. | | |
| 1988 | R | D | D | We believe that, as a first-rate world power moving into the 21st century, we can have a first-rate full employment economy, with an indexed minimum wage that can help lift and keep families out of poverty, with training and employment programs—including child care and health care—that can help people move from welfare to work, with portable pensions and an adequate Social Security System, safeguarded against emasculation and privatization, that can help assure a comfortable and fulfilling old age, with opportunities for voluntary national public service, above and beyond current services, that can enrich our communities, and with all workers assured the protection of an effective law that guarantees their rights to organize, join the union of their choice, and bargain collectively with their employer, free from anti-union tactics. | We will use new technologies, such as computer data bases and telecommunications, to strengthen and streamline job banks matching people who want to work with available jobs. . . The best jobs program—the one that created more than 17 million jobs since 1982—is lower taxes on people. We believe that every person who wants a job should have the opportunity to get a job. We reject the notion that putting more Americans to work causes inflation. The failure of government make-work programs proves that jobs are created by people in a free market. | |
| 1992 | R | D | D | | | |
| 1996 | D | R | R | We need to find new ways to help working families find economic security: better training to help workers learn skills to get new and better jobs; the security of good health care and safe pensions so they can take care of themselves and their families. This is a challenge that American workers and managers are ready to face, and the Democratic Party will continue to tackle. . . The President and Democrats in Congress raised the minimum wage to $5.15 an hour, after defeating fierce Republican opposition led by Senator Dole and Speaker Gingrich. We believe the minimum wage should be a wage you can live on. | Our vision is that everyone who seeks a job will have a job. We will break the “job lock” and bring employment opportunities to all Americans. Science, Technology, and Innovation in the 21st Century | |
| 2000 | R | R | R | Now we must do more. We must bring all Americans who are willing to work hard into the circle of prosperity by more fully extend the benefit of the Earned Income Tax Credit to working families, again raising the minimum wage, and giving American workers the skills they need to make it in today’s economy. We will vigorously enforce protections against on-the-job discrimination, reassert our belief in an equal day’s pay for an equal day’s work, seek to prevent the exploitation of workers, and ensure that the nation’s worker protection laws are enforced. | | |
| 2004 | R | R | R | We believe the private sector, not government, is the engine of economic growth and job creation. Government’s responsibility is to create an environment that will promote private sector investment, foster vigorous competition, and strengthen the foundations of an innovative economy. . . We will fight for American jobs and we will fight for American workers. Under John Kerry and John Edwards, we will revive America’s manufacturing sector, create new jobs and protect existing ones by ending tax breaks for companies that ship jobs overseas and cutting taxes for companies that create jobs here at home; by fighting for free, fair and balanced trade; by encouraging investment in small businesses and helping companies deal with rising health care costs; by promoting new technologies, like energy, that will lead to the companies and jobs of tomorrow; and by ensuring that people of every age learn the skills to succeed in today’s economy. . . We will invest in the technologies of the future, from renewable energy to nanotechnology to biomedicine, and will work to make permanent the research and development tax credit. | | |
| 2008 | R | D | D | For months the state of our economy has dominated the headlines–and the news has not been good. The sub-prime lending debacle has sent the housing market into a tailspin, and many Americans have lost their homes. By early August, the economy had shed 463,000 jobs over seven straight months of job loss. Health, gas and food prices are rising dramatically. | Government can play an important role in addressing economic dislocations by modernizing its re-training and unemployment assistance programs. We must make these programs actually anticipate dislocations so that affected workers can get new skills quickly and return to the workforce. We advocate a seamless approach to helping employees stay on the job and advance through education. | |
| 2012 | D | R | D | Even as President Obama remains committed to working with both parties, he and his cabinet pursued a series of executive actions to help spark economic growth and job creation, including expanding access to refinancing for families who have stayed current on their mortgages, challenging Community Health Centers to hire veterans, accelerating permitting for transportation projects, cutting waste and reducing improper payments, and enabling student loan borrowers to cap their payments at a percentage of income. | The best jobs program is economic growth. We do not offer yet another made-in-Washington package of subsidies and spending to create temporary or artificial jobs. We want much more than that. We want a roaring job market to match a roaring economy. . . Republicans will pursue free market policies that are the surest way to boost employment and create job growth and economic prosperity for all. | |
| 2016 | D | R | R | That is why we are committed to doing everything we can to build a full-employment economy, where everyone has a job that pays enough to raise a family and live in dignity with a sense of purpose. Democrats will build strong, sustained, shared economic growth. | | |
| 2019 | R | D | R | | | Unemployment falls to 50 year low |
| 2020 | R | D | R | President Trump inherited the longest economic expansion in American history from the Obama-Biden Administration, and he squandered it. . . That is why Democrats commit to forging a new social and economic contract with the American people—a contract that invests in the people and promotes shared prosperity, not one that benefits only big corporations and the wealthiest few. . . Democrats will fight to raise wages for working people and improve job quality and security, including by raising the federal minimum wage so it reaches $15 an hour by 2026. Raising the federal minimum wage, so fewer workers are forced to hold down multiple jobs to make ends meet, will significantly decrease risks of infection from COVID-19 and in the future. | | |
| 2024 | D | R | D | During this Administration, 30 states from Mississippi to Pennsylvania have seen record-low unemployment; and the run of low unemployment nationwide hasn’t been this long in over 50 years. Wages are up across the board, and rising fastest for lower-income workers, Black workers, Latinos, and women. | | |
