2004 and 2012

In 2004, the unemployment rate averaged out at 5.5%. In June 2004, Obama, running for the US Senate, attacked President Bush over his job record. How many jobs did the economy create in June 2004? 112,000. This was actually down from previous months. It’s actually impressive considering that the unemployment rate was 5.6% and had been for much of 2004 (it’s harder to get big job growth when unemployment is relatively low). Obama actually said that the awful job numbers of June 2012 are “a step in the right direction”. So to recap: 112,000 jobs and 5.6% unemployment was killing the middle class but 80,000 jobs (when there’s clearly a job shortage) and 8.2% unemployment is “a step in the right direction”. At least, this seems to be the way that Obama sees the situation.