Harry S. Truman Performance on Stock Market, GDP and Jobs Created

Last updated: April 23rd, 2024

Harry Truman was a World War I veteran and U.S. Senator, as well as Vice President under Franklin D. Roosevelt, before succeeding him in office after his death in 1945. He worked with other countries to rebuild Europe and Japan after World War II, and expanded FDR’s New Deal.

Under Truman’s administration, many of Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal programs were expanded in a broad set of reforms Truman called the “Fair Deal.” He increased Social Security coverage, nearly doubled the minimum wage, and opposed tax cuts.

Note: We only have jobs data for Truman since the metrics didn’t exist or we don’t have the full data set yet.

Summary of Harry S. Truman’s performance

Below is a table summarizing Harry S. Truman's cumulative and annualized performance across all the metrics we track. These are for the entirety of Harry S. Truman's term.

Indicator	Cumulative Gain/Loss
NASDAQ	N/A
DOW	N/A
S&P	N/A
Job Growth	20.99%
GDP Growth	N/A

Key Policies

Employment Act of 1946 (Feb 1946)
National Security Act (July 1947)
Housing Act (July 1949)
Congress raises minimum wage from $0.40 to $0.75 (Oct 1949)
Revenue Act of 1950 (Sept 1950)
Social Security Amendments (Aug 1950)

Key Events

Germany surrenders (May 1945)
Japan surrenders (Aug 1945)
Congress approves Marshall Plan to rebuild Europe (April 1948)
People’s Republic of China established (Oct 1949)
Korean War begins (June 1950)

Harry S. Truman's stock market performance

Under Harry S. Truman’s presidency, the S&P 500 gained N/A, the NASDAQ gained N/A and the Dow Jones gained N/A. Annualized, the S&P 500 gained N/A, the NASDAQ gained N/A and the Dow Jones gained N/A

Here is Harry S. Truman’s cumulative stock market performance broken out by term.

Indicator	Cumulative End of Term 1	Cumulative End of Term 2
NASDAQ	N/A	N/A
DOW	N/A	N/A
S&P	N/A	N/A

Stock Performance Chart

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Truman GDP growth performance

During Harry S. Truman’s presidency, the GDP gained N/A. That translates annually as GDP gained N/A.

Here is Truman’s cumulative GDP growth performance broken out by term.

Indicator	Cumulative End of Term 1	Cumulative End of Term 2
GDP Growth	N/A	N/A

GDP Performance Chart

Truman jobs growth performance

During Harry S. Truman’s presidency, payrolls grew 20.99% cumulatively. That translated to an annualized jobs groth of 2.49%.

Here is Truman’s cumulative job growth performance broken out by term.

Indicator	Cumulative End of Term 1	Cumulative End of Term 2
Job Growth	6.73%	20.99%

Job Growth Performance Chart

How we calculate President Truman's data for Facts First?

We capture the data as soon as it’s available to us – stock market data after daily market close, jobs data once a month and GDP data once a quarter. After verifying the raw data, we then calculate updated cumulative and annualized performance data for the current president (the data for previous presidents have been calculated and verified in advance).

Some metrics are measured daily (like stock market performance), monthly (like jobs growth) and quarterly (like GDP growth). We start measurement of performance for a president from the first full time period after their inauguration. For stock market performance, it is the first stock market day in office. For jobs growth, it’s either first full calendar month in office (so if you are inaugurated in the middle of January, the first full month is February). This ensures a consistent starting point across all presidencies.

Also, read these articles in our Learning Center:

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