I don't mean to pile on our outgoing president, but the publication Business First of Buffalo has an interesting article today, in the Triangle Business Journal, with a list of how presidents' job growth have fared since World War II. The information is culled from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

This tidbit caught my eye: Over the last eight years, job growth grew the least under President George W. Bush. That's the lowest job growth since World War II. from 2001 through 2009, job gains grew only .28%.

How'd the other guys do? It's hard to do worse. I half-expected President Bill Clinton to have presided over the most growth, given how well the economy did in the 1990s, but actually Lyndon Johnson's America did the best--3.74% job growth. In second place? Jimmy Carter, which was surprising, since few historians have rated his administration as a success. But under his watch, the number of jobs grew 3.11%. Bill Clinton came in third place, with 2.42%.

Here's the entire list:

• Lyndon Johnson (1963-69), 3.74%
• Jimmy Carter (1977-81), 3.11%
• Bill Clinton (1993-2001), 2.42%
• Harry Truman (1945-53), 2.38%
• Richard Nixon (1969-74), 2.30%
• John Kennedy (1961-63), 2.28%
• Ronald Reagan (1981-89), 2.04%
• Gerald Ford (1974-77), 0.95%
• Dwight Eisenhower (1953-61), 0.87%
• George H. W. Bush (1989-93), 0.59%
• George W. Bush (2001-09), 0.28%

The entire article has several lists -- how construction jobs did (George W. Bush ranks 9th, instead of 10th), how manufacturing went, retail and so on.

Hopefully in four years, job growth under President Barack Obama will be a lot higher than #11 or #10.