Analysis of Economic Welfare of Americans and the Presidential Honeymoon Period: A Pooled Time Series Analysis

Includes bibliographical references (pages 31-34).The purpose of this quantitative, correlative study was to determine whether there is an association, not necessarily causal, between variation in economic indicators and variation in Presidential approval over the entire administration of a President and whether there is a significant difference between the honeymoon and post-honeymoon relationship between economic indicators and Presidential approval. The statistical analyses in this study failed to demonstrate the existence of any period of reduced electoral sensitivity to negative economic results. Rather, incoming Presidents were punished rather than forgiven during their honeymoons. One of the implications of this finding for U.S. politics is that Presidents should not feel that the electorate is unusually permissive during the first 100 days; in order to keep approval ratings high, Presidents should refrain from taking actions that could result in negative economic outcomes. Such actions can be postponed to after the honeymoon period, when they will likely have less of an impact on approval