No president since FDR has been reelected with an unemployment rate above 8 percent. But then again, before Obama, no president had been elected with “Community Organizer” as one of the top jobs on his resume. So, crazier things have happened.
CBO Director Doug Elmendorf blogs:
With modest economic growth anticipated for the next few years, CBO expects employment to expand slowly. The unemployment rate is projected to fall to 8.9 percent in the fourth quarter of this year and to 8.5 percent in the fourth quarter of 2012 and then to remain above 8 percent until 2014 (see figure below).
Back in 2009, Obama’s advisors Christina Romer and Jared Bernstein predicted unemployment wouldn’t crack 8 percent if the stimulus plan passed. Guess they were a little off there (and it only cost us $1 trillion!).
But the unemployment rate may not need to fall below 8 percent for the public to start feeling more optimistic about the economic recovery. If unemployment decreases steadily at the rate predicted by the CBO, Obama can make the case his policies are slowly but surely mending the economy, and that electing a Republican will set us back to our 2008 status. That means creating the perception of steady improvements, even if they’re not significant.
