Reagan Would Envy Obama’s Economic Record

If there’s one thing that Republicans would have us believe, it is that Obama’s economic policies are a failure which made the recession worse, and that Reagan was an economic genius who should serve as an example of how to improve the economy. Here’s a graph to showing that’s blatantly untrue.

Both Reagan and Obama took office when unemployment was considered fairly high. Under Obama, unemployment briefly topped 10% during his first year and then began to go down. Under Reagan, unemployment remained above 10% for the better part of a year.

Most of the job losses that occurred during Obama’s presidency happened during the first few months as a result of the deep recession that began before he took office. Less than a year into his term, the economy showed steady improvement. By contrast, the job losses under Reagan didn’t begin until about six months after he became president and continued to get worse for the next 18 months.

The severity of the economic crisis that Obama inherited cannot be over-emphasized. Not since the Great Depression had we seen such massive job losses as were occurring at the time Obama was sworn in. Economists predicted that we would have 20% unemployment within a year. It is remarkable that unemployment peaked at only 10.1% and that the economy began improving as quickly as it did.