Look at this graph, which covers the last year of George W. Bush's term, and the first year of Barack Obama's. Specifically, President Obama took office on January 20, 2009. So tell me why Democrats aren't expecting their best election ever this fall?
How could Republicans possibly be fired up about their chances this year? It doesn't make any sense, does it? Barack Obama took over in the depths of Bush's second recession, at a time when this economic collapse seemed to have no bottom. Job losses were accelerating every month, and the stock market was in the toilet. We weren't far from panic. This was the situation when the Republican administration left office.
But things started turning around almost instantly under Obama (thanks at least partly to that stimulus bill rushed through Congress uncharacteristically quickly). All year, we've been losing fewer and fewer new jobs every month, culminating in this healthy increase announced on Friday. From its low a year ago, the stock market has gained about 70%. How could you ask for a better year? Sure, we're still in a hole, but considering where we started, it's just astonishing.
Here's another graph, of initial unemployment claims, that shows pretty much the same thing:
So why aren't the Democrats on top of the world right now? Why hasn't Fox "News" folded? Why haven't Republican politicians crawled into a hole to lick their wounds? Instead, I'm hearing predictions of major gains by the GOP. Why? That really doesn't make any sense at all. Sure, people are still hurting, but after all, it's the Republicans who brought us this disaster.
While there is understandable frustration with the current high rate of unemployment, it's important to remember the severity of the damage caused by the recession to the overall employment situation. To use a medical metaphor, a person who had quadrupole [sic] bypass on Monday will not be running a marathon on Friday. An economy that lost all of the jobs created in the previous expansion will not turn around and start adding 300,000 jobs/month anytime soon.
Is that the problem? "Frustration" with unemployment that's still sky high? But what in the world did people expect? How could anyone possibly expect a faster recovery than this? And how could they ever think that returning the GOP to power would make sense? It was the GOP who brought us this terrible mess (all these terrible messes, I should say), admittedly with some help from conservative - or spineless - Democrats in Congress.
One other thing that's interesting:
Also note the unemployment rate continues to be high for those with low educational achievement and low for those with high educational achievement:
Unemployment rate for
Less than a high school diploma: 14.5%
High school with no college: 10.8%
Some college or associates degree: 8.2%
Bachelor's or higher: 4.9% (this is near full employment from an economic perspective).
Could you ask for a better reason to stay in school? Also, this shows how critically important education is to our whole nation. Yes, we're in a bad slump right now, but the last thing we should be doing is cutting spending on education. In fact, instead of those mindless rants of "tax cuts, tax cuts, tax cuts," I'd much prefer widespread chants of "education, education, education."
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