Are Republicans or Democrats Better for the Economy?

In the latest Gallup poll on the most important problems facing the U.S. today, the highest share of respondents identified the “economy in general” as their biggest concern. Asked which political party would best handle America’s problems, 42 percent of those who identified an issue chose the Republican Party, compared with 37 percent in favor of Democrats.

Such results beg the central question of this WalletHub report: Would Americans place their trust in the right party when it comes to dealing with the economy?

In order to objectively answer that question, WalletHub’s analysts compared the state of the economy under six different scenarios in which either Democrats or Republicans control one branch of government or both the presidency and legislature. WalletHub then examined each scenario according to 13 key indicators of economic performance, ranging from “real gross domestic product (GDP) growth” to “poverty rate” to the “consumer and mortgage debt per capita.”