How do we calculate data for Biden vs. Trump?
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:
Want to share our charts but need to verify our data?
We are happy to share the raw data and methodologies we use with any media organization that wants to link to or share our charts and data. If that is of interest to you, please contact us.
 (Due the amount of requests, we must limit inquiries and responses to media representatives only.)