Fact vs. Myth: Real Unemployment Rate (U-6) -- Obama vs. Bush

[Faun]

And no, it was the democrats that caused the housing crisis, take responsibility for a change.

Complete and utter idiocy. The housing boom was the result of Republican policies and Democrats were in the minority party during the bubble and didn't prevent the majority party Republicans from passing any related bills.

 

[Faun]

Bush inherited a recession

Bush burst the dot com bubble and then he burst the housing bubble, both created by the GOP Congress.

How could any president be the cause of a dot.com bust his first 1/2 year in office? And no, it was the democrats that caused the housing crisis, take responsibility for a change.

"We can put light where there's darkness, and hope where there's despondency in this country. And part of it is working together as a nation to encourage folks to own their own home."

- President George W. Bush, Oct. 15, 2002

Looks like someone wanted everyone to own their own home.

It's cute how Republicans took credit for the boom until it went bust. Then they started blaming Democrats.

"Thanks to our policies, home ownership in America is at an all time high" - George Bush, 2004 RNC acceptance speech​

 

[The Rabbi]

Bush inherited a recession

Bush burst the dot com bubble and then he burst the housing bubble, both created by the GOP Congress.

How could any president be the cause of a dot.com bust his first 1/2 year in office? And no, it was the democrats that caused the housing crisis, take responsibility for a change.

"We can put light where there's darkness, and hope where there's despondency in this country. And part of it is working together as a nation to encourage folks to own their own home."

- President George W. Bush, Oct. 15, 2002

Looks like someone wanted everyone to own their own home.

Certainly not the case now. Home ownership is at all time lows. People dont have the confidence to buy a home and settle down. They may have to move for a new job at any time.
Thanks, Obama!

Rabbi,

Serious case of ODS... The evidence is obvious... You're irrational hatred for Obama is worrying...

You need help... Obama financial record is better than any Republican President in 50 years.

Rabbi you have tried to screw every stat possible against Obama to laughable proportions.

Yet you can't explain rationally the source of your hate for Obama.

Why have you not held Regan to same standards when he introduced his social policies?

Ted, get help. Many community colleges have remedial programs to help people like you. If that doesnt work, try Haldol. It seems to work for people with delusions. Like you.
Obama's policies have led to the worst economy since FDR. By every measure we are falling short. By the time Obama leaves office he will have spent moer than every other president combined. Yes, every other one combined.
Business formation is at an all time low. More businesses are ceasing than starting. In a recovery. That is unprecedented.
Workforce participation is at levels not seen since the 1970s. If the economy is better and jobs are being created then people would go back ito the workforce. But they arent.
Food stamp usage is at an all time high. This is several years into a supposed recovery. If people were working and earning money they would not need food stamps
Disability is the fastest growing source of income. If there were jobs people wouldnt choose disability
Home ownership, as I mentioned.

There is no metric that indicates Obama's economic record is anything but disaster. Even the "highest Dow of al time" is smoke. People are buying stock because there are no alternatives. Valuations are at historic highs.

Reagan's programs worked. Obama's have failed.

 

[CowboyTed]

Bush burst the dot com bubble and then he burst the housing bubble, both created by the GOP Congress.

How could any president be the cause of a dot.com bust his first 1/2 year in office? And no, it was the democrats that caused the housing crisis, take responsibility for a change.

"We can put light where there's darkness, and hope where there's despondency in this country. And part of it is working together as a nation to encourage folks to own their own home."

- President George W. Bush, Oct. 15, 2002

Looks like someone wanted everyone to own their own home.

Certainly not the case now. Home ownership is at all time lows. People dont have the confidence to buy a home and settle down. They may have to move for a new job at any time.
Thanks, Obama!

Rabbi,

Serious case of ODS... The evidence is obvious... You're irrational hatred for Obama is worrying...

You need help... Obama financial record is better than any Republican President in 50 years.

Rabbi you have tried to screw every stat possible against Obama to laughable proportions.

Yet you can't explain rationally the source of your hate for Obama.

Why have you not held Regan to same standards when he introduced his social policies?

Ted, get help. Many community colleges have remedial programs to help people like you. If that doesnt work, try Haldol. It seems to work for people with delusions. Like you.
Obama's policies have led to the worst economy since FDR. By every measure we are falling short. By the time Obama leaves office he will have spent moer than every other president combined. Yes, every other one combined.
Business formation is at an all time low. More businesses are ceasing than starting. In a recovery. That is unprecedented.
Workforce participation is at levels not seen since the 1970s. If the economy is better and jobs are being created then people would go back ito the workforce. But they arent.
Food stamp usage is at an all time high. This is several years into a supposed recovery. If people were working and earning money they would not need food stamps
Disability is the fastest growing source of income. If there were jobs people wouldnt choose disability
Home ownership, as I mentioned.

There is no metric that indicates Obama's economic record is anything but disaster. Even the "highest Dow of al time" is smoke. People are buying stock because there are no alternatives. Valuations are at historic highs.

Reagan's programs worked. Obama's have failed.

It is better than he took office. Rabbi, Obama is about fixing your turds mistakes. He was handed the worst economy since the depression.

You're drunk teenager wreaking a house and then complain about how the adults cleaned it up.

You see nothing wrong with the guys you elected... You propose clueless and clueless proposals that would send US in depression...

No economist is backing your thoughts on the economy... You probably think Kansas was a success...

 

[AceRothstein]

Bush inherited a recession

Bush burst the dot com bubble and then he burst the housing bubble, both created by the GOP Congress.

How could any president be the cause of a dot.com bust his first 1/2 year in office? And no, it was the democrats that caused the housing crisis, take responsibility for a change.

"We can put light where there's darkness, and hope where there's despondency in this country. And part of it is working together as a nation to encourage folks to own their own home."

- President George W. Bush, Oct. 15, 2002

Looks like someone wanted everyone to own their own home.

Certainly not the case now. Home ownership is at all time lows. People dont have the confidence to buy a home and settle down. They may have to move for a new job at any time.
Thanks, Obama!

All time lows? No.

 

[CowboyTed]

Bush inherited a recession

Bush burst the dot com bubble and then he burst the housing bubble, both created by the GOP Congress.

How could any president be the cause of a dot.com bust his first 1/2 year in office? And no, it was the democrats that caused the housing crisis, take responsibility for a change.

"We can put light where there's darkness, and hope where there's despondency in this country. And part of it is working together as a nation to encourage folks to own their own home."

- President George W. Bush, Oct. 15, 2002

Looks like someone wanted everyone to own their own home.

Certainly not the case now. Home ownership is at all time lows. People dont have the confidence to buy a home and settle down. They may have to move for a new job at any time.
Thanks, Obama!

All time lows? No.

Nothing to do with the GOP banking crisis... Another one ye own...

Again Teenager....

 

[pinqy]

The real unemployment rate, the one that most media talking heads rarely mention, is called the U-6, and according to the Department of Labor, the U-6 rate is now 11.3%. Under Obama the U-6 has been as high as 17%.

The U-6 and the U-3 measure different things. And since the U-6 includes many people in its numerator who are not unemployed, it is certainly not the "real unemployment rate."

 

[healthmyths]

One BIG contrast is that unlike Bush, Obama inherited the worst recession since the Great Depression.

Wrong. The recession that Reagan faced was just as bad as, if not worse than, the one Obama "inherited" (I put "inherited" in quotes because the 2008 recession was caused by policies that Obama had supported.)

And Reagan overcame the 1982 recession in sterling fashion, far better than Obama has overcame the 2008 recession. Obama's economic record pales in comparison to Reagan's.

That being the biggisest reason the U6 rate went up as high as 17.1%. And while the U3 rate is the official unemployment rate, by any measure, it almost doubled under Bush and has come down under Obama.

Huh? The U-6 rate stayed well below 10% for most of Bush's presidency, and it never got above 13%.

Your other nonsense about the CRA has been debunked repeatedly.

No, it has not. You just have not read the refutations of the supposed "debunking." Investor's Business Daily has published some superb research that refutes the left's denialism on this issue. Obviously you did not bother to read the linked article on the causes of the financial crisis, much less any of the articles linked therein.

Reagan's recession was not as deep as Bush's. GDP fell by 1.5% during Reagan's; compared to over 4% during Bush's and the U6 rate swelled by over 11 million people. That's why it was the Great Recession. As far as comparing the two, at this point in Reagan's presidency, the U3 rate was 6.6%. Under Obama, it's 5.7%. Though to Reagan's credit, he added more jobs and in a smaller population.

As far as the CRA. It's been debated plenty and I've read much about it. CRA loans accounted for just about 6% of the toxic residential loans and zero percent of the toxic commercial loans. Far below the threshold o cause the crecit markets to freeze up. The vast majority of the toxic loans were made by lenders who chose to give them out, not because they were required to by government regulations. And the reason they chose to take such risks is because the GSE's assumed the risk. That, along with the Fed lowering the federal fund rate to 2% and lower is what caused the financial collapse.

When Citibank folded to Obama/Acorn's demands due to the large mass protests planned and paid out of court in 1995, the die was cast in that ANY lender faced
with unqualified borrower especially of a minority would make the loan. Faced with a growing lower quality asset based that FDIC auditors would rate very low, the resolution was to as this statement did..
Oct. 23,2008 (Bloomberg) --
Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have an ``effective'' federal guarantee, not the "full faith and credit'' of the U.S. government, Federal Housing Finance Agency Director James Lockhart said after the hearing. That does give them effectively a guarantee of the U.S. government.''
Lockhart s Fannie Freddie Guarantee Remarks Stir Up Confusion - Bloomberg

With effective "full faith and credit" securitizing loan packages that were re-sold was the norm! At some point the bubble would bust and that happened
on 9/18/2008!
On Thursday (Sept 18), at 11am the Federal Reserve noticed a tremendous draw-down of money market accounts in the U.S., to the tune of $550 billion was being drawn out in the matter of an hour or two. The Treasury ...estimation is that by 2pm that afternoon, $5.5 trillion would have been drawn out of the money market system of the U.S., would have collapsed the entire economy of the U.S., and within 24 hours the world economy would have collapsed. It would have been the end of our economic system and our political system as we know it.
Index of blog

This started the collapse of the housing bubble!

 

[The Rabbi]

Bush inherited a recession

Bush burst the dot com bubble and then he burst the housing bubble, both created by the GOP Congress.

How could any president be the cause of a dot.com bust his first 1/2 year in office? And no, it was the democrats that caused the housing crisis, take responsibility for a change.

"We can put light where there's darkness, and hope where there's despondency in this country. And part of it is working together as a nation to encourage folks to own their own home."

- President George W. Bush, Oct. 15, 2002

Looks like someone wanted everyone to own their own home.

Certainly not the case now. Home ownership is at all time lows. People dont have the confidence to buy a home and settle down. They may have to move for a new job at any time.
Thanks, Obama!

All time lows? No.

You're right.
20 year lows. DOes that somehow make it better?

 

[edthecynic]

unqualified borrower especially of a minority

And there it is, the rationalization of ALL racists, no minority is ever qualified for a loan. The CRA has nothing to do with unqualified borrowers, in fact it is quite the opposite. The CRA came about when news organizations conducted a sting. They sent a qualified black couple with excellent credit in for a bank mortgage, and when they were rejected they sent a white couple with the identical credit report with only the name changed for a mortgage for the same house and the white couple got the loan.

Loans to unqualified borrowers with bad credit, white or minority, did not start until Bush's reelection bid, as you well know.

 

[Staidhup]

The real issues that several overlook, due to their political persuasion, is labor participation rate, compensation rate, and number of unemployed that are no longer eligible for compensation. Food stamps have skyrocketed, wonder why?

 

[mikegriffith1]

The U-6 was NEVER the "real" unemployment rate, and Bush's U-6 was never 10%, bush had the BLS cook the numbers. See that knife cuts both ways!!!

The U-6 gives you the whole story about the employment situation. The regular jobless number, the U-3, can be very misleading, especially when many businesses have cut employee hours in response to Obamacare, and especially when we have so many people who are severely under-employed.

How would Bush have gotten the Department of Labor to cook the numbers? Do you have any evidence for that claim? How have the reporting criteria changed from when, or before, Bush was in office? Doesn't the BLS report the same types of numbers? So how could Bush have "cooked the numbers"?

Anyway, the central point is that when you consider the U-6, it becomes clear that the economy under Obama is performing markedly worse than it did under Bush--or under Clinton, or Bush Sr., or Reagan, or Carter.

 

[NYcarbineer]

The U-6 was NEVER the "real" unemployment rate, and Bush's U-6 was never 10%, bush had the BLS cook the numbers. See that knife cuts both ways!!!

The U-6 gives you the whole story about the employment situation. The regular jobless number, the U-3, can be very misleading, especially when many businesses have cut employee hours in response to Obamacare, and especially when we have so many people who are severely under-employed.

How would Bush have gotten the Department of Labor to cook the numbers? Do you have any evidence for that claim? How have the reporting criteria changed from when, or before, Bush was in office? Doesn't the BLS report the same types of numbers? So how could Bush have "cooked the numbers"?

Anyway, the central point is that when you consider the U-6, it becomes clear that the economy under Obama is performing markedly worse than it did under Bush--or under Clinton, or Bush Sr., or Reagan, or Carter.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics always provides the U-6 number. It was 14.3 when Bush left office;

it's down 3 percentage points on Obama's watch.

What, exactly are you trying to bash Obama for?

 

[edthecynic]

many businesses have cut employee hours in response to Obamacare

No matter how many times you gullible SUCKERS parrot that GOP scripted lie, it will STILL be a lie, not that you care.

When Obamacare was passed there were 9,233,000 working PT for economic reasons and there are 6,810,000 now, over 2.4 million LESS.

In spite of being exposed to the facts, I'm sure you will keep on parroting the lie you love to parrot.

 

[Faun]

Here is a breakdown of job growth by president on an annual average going back to 1939 (as far back as BLS allows)...

[TABLE="class: data1"][TBODY][TR="bgcolor: blue"][TD="width: 150px"] Clinton [/TD]
[TD="align: right"]

2,861,000 ​

[/TD][/TR]
[TR="bgcolor: blue"][TD="width: 150px"] Carter [/TD]
[TD="align: right"]

2,586,000 ​

[/TD][/TR]
[TR="bgcolor: blue"][TD="width: 150px"] Johnson [/TD]
[TD="align: right"]

2,358,000 ​

[/TD][/TR]
[TR="bgcolor: red"][TD="width: 150px"] Reagan [/TD]
[TD="align: right"]

2,016,000 ​

[/TD][/TR]
[TR="bgcolor: blue"][TD="width: 150px"] Roosevelt [/TD]
[TD="align: right"]

1,819,000 ​

[/TD][/TR]
[TR="bgcolor: red"][TD="width: 150px"] Nixon [/TD]
[TD="align: right"]

1,644,000 ​

[/TD][/TR]
[TR="bgcolor: blue"][TD="width: 150px"] Kennedy [/TD]
[TD="align: right"]

1,261,000 ​

[/TD][/TR]
[TR="bgcolor: blue"][TD="width: 150px"] Obama [/TD]
[TD="align: right"]

1,145,000 ​

[/TD][/TR]
[TR="bgcolor: blue"][TD="width: 150px"] Truman [/TD]
[TD="align: right"]

1,123,000 ​

[/TD][/TR]
[TR="bgcolor: red"][TD="width: 150px"] Ford [/TD]
[TD="align: right"]

861,000 ​

[/TD][/TR]
[TR="bgcolor: red"][TD="width: 150px"] GHW Bush [/TD]
[TD="align: right"]

659,000 ​

[/TD][/TR]
[TR="bgcolor: red"][TD="width: 150px"] Eisenhower [/TD]
[TD="align: right"]

442,000 ​

[/TD][/TR]
[TR="bgcolor: red"][TD="width: 150px"] Bush [/TD]
[TD="align: right"]

160,000 ​

[/TD][/TR][/TBODY][/TABLE]
Bureau of Labor Statistics Data

And here is the same data but weighted by population since 1976...

[TABLE="class:data1"]
[TR="bgcolor:blue"][TD="width:150"] Carter [/TD][TD="align:right"] 3,819,000 [/TD][/TR]
[TR="bgcolor:blue"][TD="width:150"] Clinton [/TD][TD="align:right"] 3,341,000 [/TD][/TR]
[TR="bgcolor:red"] [TD="width:150"] Reagan [/TD][TD="align:right"] 2,712,000 [/TD][/TR]
[TR="bgcolor:blue"][TD="width:150"] Obama [/TD][TD="align:right"] 1,145,000 [/TD][/TR]
[TR="bgcolor:red"] [TD="width:150"] GHW Bush [/TD][TD="align:right"] 849,000 [/TD][/TR]
[TR="bgcolor:red"] [TD="width:150"] Bush [/TD][TD="align:right"] 170,000 [/TD][/TR]
[/TABLE]

Bureau of Labor Statistics Data

 

[Siete]

Hand off a recession to the next guy and blame his sorry ass for your #'s ... Cool.

 

[Theowl32]

Bush inherited a recession

Bush burst the dot com bubble and then he burst the housing bubble, both created by the GOP Congress.

The dotcom bubble burst in the Summer of 2000, you fucking dipshit. You stupid fucking moron. You fucking hack.

 

[edthecynic]

Bush inherited a recession

Bush burst the dot com bubble and then he burst the housing bubble, both created by the GOP Congress.

The dotcom bubble burst in the Summer of 2000, you fucking dipshit. You stupid fucking moron. You fucking hack.

And who controlled Congress in the Summer of 2000, you fucking dipshit. You stupid fucking moron. You fucking hack.

 

[rdean]

The real unemployment rate, the one that most media talking heads rarely mention, is called the U-6, and according to the Department of Labor, the U-6 rate is now 11.3%. Under Obama the U-6 has been as high as 17%. See:

Chart What s the real unemployment rate

U6 Unemployment Rate Portal Seven

The Big Lie 5.6 Unemployment

In contrast, under George W. Bush, the U-6 stayed below 10% for the vast majority of his presidency, and it didn't go above 12% until the last three months of his second term. That sharp upswing came because of the Great Recession in 2008, which was largely caused by massive--and disastrous--federal intervention in the home loan industry (via Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and the CRA), which led to the housing crisis, which in turn triggered--and largely caused--the Great Recession. See:

Did Deregulation and Capitalism Cause the Financial Crisis

(And it's worth noting that the Great Recession was needlessly made worse by senseless federal regulations such as the ridiculous federal mark-to-market regulations. Those regulations were later quietly changed, in recognition of the damage they had done during the early stages of the recession. For more on the damage done by the federal mark-to-market restrictions, see Suspend Mark-To-Market Now - Forbes and The mark to market fiasco.)

Policies don't take full effect overnight. It takes time. The disaster was coming for years following GOP policies and the fact they used reconciliation three times. Bush was unfortunate to still be in office when his GOP house of cards collapsed. All of his disasters and fiascoes showed up at the same time.

 

[Siete]

many businesses have cut employee hours in response to Obamacare

No matter how many times you gullible SUCKERS parrot that GOP scripted lie, it will STILL be a lie, not that you care.

When Obamacare was passed there were 9,233,000 working PT for economic reasons and there are 6,810,000 now, over 2.4 million LESS.

In spite of being exposed to the facts, I'm sure you will keep on parroting the lie you love to parrot.

the baby boomers are retiring now days Ed. Try to keep up.