FORBES: CLINTON BEST AT ECONOMY

Forbes Magazine declares the Clinton was the best of all 10 post-war presidents at handling the economy:

Presidents And Prosperity
Dan Ackman, 07.20.04, 3:00 PM ET

Clinton's two terms in office (1993-2001) were marked by strong numbers for gross domestic product (GDP) and employment growth and especially for deficit reduction. His overall ranking puts him first among the ten postwar presidents--ahead of Lyndon B. Johnson, Kennedy and Reagan, who were tightly grouped behind the 42nd president and recent autobiographer.

To create our rankings we looked at six measures of economic performance--GDP growth, per capita income growth, employment gains, unemployment rate reduction, inflation reduction and federal deficit reduction--for each of the ten postwar presidencies. For each measure we looked at whether the situation improved or got worse, and we ranked the presidents from 1 to 10. We then averaged the ranks to come up with a final score.