Average Unemployment Rates For US Presidents Since World War II

[U2Edge]

Is there a point to these numbers or is this just a fun waste of time?

This can be done with any time series data, but frankly there are some others such as alcohol consumption (which president drove the most people to drink? Have we properly thanked him?) or VD rates that are more interesting.

If someone thinks there is a real causal connection, then the data series given miss the real point.

Well, people don't vote for or against Presidents based on alcohol consumption and VD rates. They also don't rate Presidents using such things.

But people do vote for and against Presidents as well as rate them on things like the Unemployment rate, poverty rate, real GDP growth rate, inflation rate, the national debt to GDP rate, etc.

Those things measure the economic health of the country and can heavily impact whether a president is re-elected and how people assess the Presidents time in office.

The Unemployment rate and the inflation rate are the two stats that often measure economic pain or prosperity on main street the most. Inflation is very low right now, but the unemployment rate is very high. Back in the late 1970s the misery index was created to estimate economic distress among the general public. It combined the inflation rate with the unemployment rate which would give you the misery index number.

In any event, the above average unemployment rates for each President above show how difficult it was to get a job while each President was in the White House. Since Obama has been in the white house, it has been more difficult to get a job than at any time since World War II on average. That is part of the reason why the Presidents ratings on the economy are not good.