Does the party of the US president matter for the economic well-being of blacks and Latinos?

“These results are frightening,” Hajnal said. “In the modern era, economic gains for blacks and Latinos have been much greater when the president has been a Democrat.”

“Over the past 75 years, blacks and Latinos have made significant economic gains and narrowed racial disparities under Democratic presidents, while falling even further behind under Republicans – a pattern that underscores the critical role of the presidency in shaping racial inequality in America.”

The new report builds on Hajnal's previous peer-reviewed work assessing the economic fortunes of blacks and Latinos under Democratic and Republican presidents, expanding the dataset and refining the methodology to include the current president and his predecessor.

The new analysis also shows that blacks and Latinos' incomes are rising faster, their poverty rates are falling more, and unemployment in both groups is falling more under Democrats than under Republicans.

Although data for the Trump and Biden administrations are still incomplete, the basic pattern continues.

The year-to-year differences add up over time, the report says. During the years Democrats were in power, black median income rose by about $36,000, black child poverty fell by 40 percentage points, and black unemployment fell by nearly 9 percentage points. Under Republican presidents, black incomes rose more slowly (about $13,000), and black poverty and unemployment both increased (by half a percentage point for poverty and by nearly four percentage points for unemployment).

The report concludes that partisan differences are nearly as large among Latinos, but notes that fewer years of data are available for this analysis. According to the available data, Latinos experienced dramatic income gains and sharp declines in poverty and unemployment under Democrats, while they experienced little change in income and sharp increases in poverty and unemployment under Republicans. For example, child poverty among Latinos fell by 9 percentage points under Democratic presidents, while it rose by nearly 3 percentage points under Republicans.

The report shows that differences in economic outcomes are particularly pronounced when a party is in the White House for four years or more.