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发帖数: 29846 | 1 Biden Blames High Unemployment on ‘This God-Awful Recession We’ve
Inherited’
By Terence P. Jeffrey
March 29, 2012
(CNSNews.com) - At a campaign event in Iowa on Wednesday, Vice President Joe
Biden blamed the continuing high level of unemployment in the United States
on what he called “this God-awful recession we’ve inherited.”
According to the non-partisan National Bureau of Economic Research, the last
recession began in December 2007 and ended in June 2009—just five months
into President Barack Obama’s term in office.
In the 33 months since the recession ended, according to the NBER, the U.S.
economy has been in a period of expansion. One of the current members of the
NBER committee that determines when recessions begin and end is Christina
Romer, who formerly served as chairperson of Obama’s Council of Economic
Advisers.
(Less than two weeks before Obama took office in 2009, Romer published a
report saying Obama's stimulus plan, if enacted, would keep unemployment
under 8 percent. In fact, unemployment has never been under 8 percent since
then--even though in February 2009 Congress did enact Obama's stimulus plan,
which the Congressional Budget Office estimated at that time would cost $
787 billion.)
To explain what he believes is happening in the U.S. economy, Biden told the
crowd at a campaign event in Davenport, Iowa, a story about his father.
“He said, Joey, you got to understand one thing, a job is about a lot more
than a paycheck,” said Biden. “It’s about your dignity. It’s about your
respect. It’s about your sense of yourself. It’s about your place in the
community.
“And too many people have been stripped of their dignity as a consequence
of this God-awful recession we’ve inherited,” said Biden. “And we’re
determined--we’re determined--I think all of us, Republican and Democrat--
are determined to turn that around.”
The expansion that began in June 2009, when the last recession ended, has
not seen the growth in real GDP and the decrease in unemployment that has
occurred in other recent economic expansions.
In no quarter of Obama’s presidency, according to the Commerce Department’
s Bureau of Economic Analysis, has real GDP grown at an annual rate of as
much as 4 percent. The most robust growth during the Obama presidency
occurred in the first quarter of 2010 when real GDP grew at a rate of 3.9
percent.
In the last four quarters, real GDP has grown at a rate of 0.4, 1.3, 1.8 and
3.0 percent.
President George W. Bush also experienced a recession in the early months of
his presidency. That recession, according to NBER, began in March 2001 and
ended in November 2001. But by the third quarter of 2003, according to BEA,
real GDP was growing at a rate of 6.7 percent. Over the course of 2004, the
year that Bush sought reelection, real GDP grew at 3.5 percent.
During George W. Bush’s first term, unemployment peaked at 6.3 percent in
June 2003, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. During the election
year of 2004, unemployment stayed below 6 percent, peaking that year at 5.8
percent in March.
The highest that unemployment went during George W. Bush’s presidency was 7
.8 percent—the level it hit in January 2009, the month Bush handed over the
office to Obama.
After January 2009, when Obama was inaugurated, unemployment has never been
lower than 8.3 percent in any month. That is the level unemployment hit in
February 2009, Obama’s first full month in the Oval Office. That is also
the level it stood at in February 2012--after Obama had been president for
three full years.
Prior to Obama’s presidency, the last time unemployment was as high as 8.0
percent was in January 1984, the year President Reagan sought reelection. In
1984, however, according to the BEA, the U.S. economy was booming, growing
at a 7.5 percent pace for the year. From January to November of 2004,
unemployment dropped from 8.0 percent to 7.2 percent. |
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