The Unemployment Rate

Republicans are pointing out that unemployment was 7.8 percent when Barack Obama took office.

It's now 8.1 percent.

See, that proves Obama is performing poorly. Obama has presided over an 4% increase in the unemployment rate.

As the graph shows, unemployment was steadily increasing since the spring of 2008, under the direction of George W. Bush.

As you can see from this graph, when George W. Bush took office, the unemployment rate was 4.2 percent. Bush and the Republicans presided over an 86 percent increase in the unemployment rate. [If we only look at Bush's first term, which ended with a 5.7% rate, the unemployment rate increased 36 percent.]

[source]

Obama hasn't been able to make a dent in the unemployment rate, but he has held it at bay. We're no longer losing 750,000 jobs per month, as we were when George W. Bush handed over the reins. And, all this has been done despite the fact that the Republicans have opposed and obstructed every piece of legislation the Obama administration has proposed.

Aside:
Bill Clinton entered office with a 7.3% unemployment rate. Leaving office with a 4.2% rate, he presided over a decline of 43 percent in the unemployment rate.