Obama Reduces Unemployment More than Reagan, Bush I, Bush II, and Clinton.

[LPH]

I was looking at the U6 unemployment rate and noticed unemployment under Bush W. went from 7.1% to 14.2%. In contrast, the Obama administration has dealt with a dramatic slowing of job losses - remember there were 700,000 jobs lost per month when Mr. Obama came to office.

Now, someone has noticed something else.

At the start of Reagan’s first fiscal Year Unemployment Rate (UE) was 7.9%
After 34 fiscal Months*, the UE rate was 7.2%, a reduction of .7%

At the start of Bush1’s first fiscal Year Unemployment Rate (UE) was 5.3%
After 34 fiscal Months*, the UE rate was 7.6%, a gain of 2.3% !

At the start of Clinton’s first fiscal Year Unemployment Rate (UE) was 6.8%
After 34 fiscal Months*, the UE rate was 5.6%, a reduction of 1.2% !

At the start of Bush2’s first fiscal Year Unemployment Rate (UE) was 5.3%
After 34 fiscal Months*, the UE rate was 5.6%, a gain of .3% !

At the start of Obama’s first fiscal Year Unemployment Rate (UE) was 10%
After 34 fiscal Months*, the UE rate was 8.2 %, a reduction of 1.8% !

Those are amazing numbers.

View the Post on the Blog

 

[Robert Heiny]

OK. Now we're up to 42 months at 8.2% or higher unemployment plus those who have dropped out of the labor market. Does he get credit for doing that single-handed also? OK, that was a snide comment on-the-fly, but I wonder.

 

[LPH]

OK. Now we're up to 42 months at 8.2% or higher unemployment plus those who have dropped out of the labor market. Does he get credit for doing that single-handed also? OK, that was a snide comment on-the-fly, but I wonder.

In January 2009, over 700K people were losing their jobs each month. This trend was slowed dramatically by a stimulus. A mistake was caving into republican demands that a tax break be included in the stimulus.

Regardless, the original post was a counter against the above 8.2% claim by the republicans. We all know republicans ran in 2010 with the slogan jobs jobs jobs. We ended up with bedroom issues and over 30 votes to repeal a health care law.

A main unemployment rate disagreement comes to interpretations of the slowing of the economy ever since the republicans returned to power in the House. For example, public sector jobs have decreased by over 600,000. If these jobs had been saved then the UE would be 7.3% and the republican talking point would be gone.

But, we can also look at the data in terms of states: North Dakota's UE rate is 3.0. Vermont is 4.6 .... or that a year to year comparison shows a drop of at least 1% in each state.

But don't ask Fox News viewers (shown by several studies now to be the most misinformed) because they think the sky is falling - and we are headed to a fiscal cliff.