Not that I'm defending Bush or attacking Obama, but it's easier to go from 4 to 5% unemployment than 8 to 9% unemployment. The unemployment approaches a limit. To continue growing the unemployment rate by a percent, you'd have to make more bad decisions than the previous percent took.

Additionally, Bush was not voted in on the promise of getting more people jobs. Obama was. Unemployment under Bush was trending downwards over his term, only spiking at the end. One could make the argument that the Democrats gaining control of the House and Senate around that time played a part of it.

I don't care much for either of them; I'm simply trying to get people to be more critical of "statistics".

z6joker9 wrote:

Nice try, don't you have laundry to fold or isn't time to watch you 10 easy steps for tighter buns video?

dubleuhb wrote:

72% of statistics are made up on the spot...

jeff.foxy wrote:

I see a t-shirt opportunity!

Obama: Losing Jobs at Slower Rate than George W.

Maybe need to tighten that up a bit.

yardobeef wrote:

Obama had to run on the promise of getting more people jobs because unemployment was so high under Bush. Bush had no such burden because he followed Clinton whose job record was really good. Secondly, how does not promising new jobs make it ok to have unemployment go up 4%? Strange reasoning.

Sure, one could argue that, but not someone who says "Unemployment under Bush was trending downwards over his term, only spiking at the end" since that's also what happened with the Democratic congress, right?

And yes, 'statistics'. Always wrong when showing something someone doesn't 'think' is true.

FuzzNJ wrote:

The unemployment rate has dropped by 1.2% in the last year if we'd like to talk about 'trends'.

FuzzNJ wrote:

Hold on there buddy, I never said it was right. I was trying to bring some balance. You keep assuming that in order to dislike Obama, someone would have to like and defend Bush. They both screwed up. I'm just trying to say that A) 4% from 4 to 8% aren't the same as 4% would be from 8 to 12% and 😎 the President alone doesn't make all the decisions that affect unemployment.

Bush wasn't focused on lowering the unemployment. Obama was. It wasn't okay for Bush to let unemployment go up like he did, but it's even more inexcusable for Obama to have let unemployment go up when he was promising to fix everything. It's why we elected him.

z6joker9 wrote:

Additionally, at the same point in Bush's run, he was only up 1.6%. You're only comparing a portion of Obama's term, since we don't know how it ends.

z6joker9 wrote:

As for relative percentages, look at it from the other way. It would be a LOT easier to go from 8% to 4% unemployment compared to going from 4% to 0%.

z6joker9 wrote:

it's easier to go from 4 to 5% unemployment than 8 to 9% unemployment

z6joker9 wrote:

How they figure the UE rate is a joke.


If only we paid more taxes this wouldn't be a problem!

ZRX1200 wrote:

We could get off on a tangent regarding the real unemployment rate and the number of people leaving the workforce, but that might be a bit too high brow and I believe slightly off-topic.

Instead, I offer this opinion: The POTUS has very little to do with unemployment rates. As ruler, he gets far too much blame/credit.

yardobeef wrote:

Four separate quote blocks in a single post?!

We have achieved Fuzzrage!

HockeyDad wrote: