A recent Washington Post-ABC News poll shows that President Obama’s job approval rating has hit an all-time low. According to the poll, 53 percent of those surveyed disapprove of President Obama and the biggest issue hurting him right now is the unemployment rate and economic situation (Balz and Cohen). A remarkable 60 percent of those surveyed in the poll disapprove of how the president is handling the economic downturn (Balz and Cohen). So how will the job crisis and economic situation affect Obama’s chances of being reelected? Many people are saying that the job crisis is the key factor affecting President Obamas chances of winning. But is that really true?
According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the national unemployment rate is at 9.1 percent, which translates to roughly 14 million people. President Obama is trying to deal with the issue with his “American Jobs Act”, which he sent to Congress urging them to “pass it immediately.” The main goal of this bill is to put Americans back to work. According to the White House website it plans to do this in a variety of different ways. First, the bill would prevent 280,000 teacher layoffs (www.whitehouse.gov). Second, thousands of workers would be put back to work rebuilding our nation’s crumbling infrastructure. Third, it would provide tax cuts to businesses hiring unemployed workers. In addition, the bill aims to extend unemployment insurance to prevent Americans from losing benefits. Overall, it is estimated that the bill would put approximately 1.9 million Americans to work (Raum). The $447 billion price tag on this bill is not cheap though. Obama says he plans one paying for the bill with tax reform for the rich (Stein). As it stands, the bill still has not yet been introduced in the House (Oliphant).
Critics have different issues with the bill. Some are criticizing it for being too small. As mentioned earlier the bill would put almost 2 million Americans back to work. However that would lower the unemployment rate only by 1 percent (Raum). Also as Mark Zandi, the chief economist of Moody’s Analytics, pointed out in a Forbes article the jobs created by the bill would only be for the year 2012, the bill does not tackle long term unemployment (Raum). Critics on the Republican side, say that raising taxes on the rich is “class warfare” and that spending more money in a recession will only worsen the economic situation (Memoli). It also goes back to the question of whether or not Keynesian economics is the answer?
So back to the question of whether or not the jobs situation will hurt Obamas chances of being reelected. In a June 2011 a New York Times article pointed out a bleak fact. “No American president since Franklin Delano Roosevelt has won a second term in office when the unemployment rate on Election Day topped 7.2 percent” (Applebaum). The article shows the examples of Jimmy Carter and George H.W Bush who both had a higher unemployment rate and did not win reelection. It also brings up the example of Ronald Reagan. Reagan won reelection with a 7.2 percent unemployment rate. From reading the article you would think that there was a direct correlation between unemployment and chances of reelection. However, as Nate Silver points out in his FiveThirtyEight New York Times blog, there is not enough data to prove a direct correlation between high unemployment rate and a president’s chance of being reelected. The unemployment situation is subjective. Some people blame the current administration, some the last and all just want the situations fixed. We will have to wait and see what happens in 2012. I believe that if the jobs bill passes then the President has a good chance of being reelected because they country will see that the situation is improving.
Works Cited
"American Jobs Act." The White House. Web. 25 Sept. 2011. <http://www.whitehouse.gov/jobsact#overview>.
Applebaum, Binyamin. "Employment Data May Be the Key to the President’s Job." Www.nytimes.com. Web. 25 Sept. 2011. <http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/02/business/economy/02jobs.html?_r=1&partner=rss&emc=rss>.
Cohen, Jon, and Dan Balz. "Obama Ratings Sink to New Lows as Hope Fades - The Washington Post." The Washington Post: National, World & D.C. Area News and Headlines - The Washington Post. Web. 25 Sept. 2011. <http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/obama-ratings-sink-to-new-lows-as-hope-fades/2011/09/05/gIQAIytZ5J_story.html>.
"Current Population Survey (CPS)." U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Web. 25 Sept. 2011. <http://www.bls.gov/cps/>.
Memoli, Michael A. "Obama Embraces GOP's 'class Warfare' Attack - Los Angeles Times." Featured Articles From The Los Angeles Times. 21 Sept. 2011. Web. 25 Sept. 2011. <http://articles.latimes.com/2011/sep/21/news/la-pn-obama-warfare-20110921>.
Oliphant, James. "American Jobs Act Republican | House Republican Offers His Own 'American Jobs Act' - Los Angeles Times." Featured Articles From The Los Angeles Times. 15 Sept. 2011. Web. 25 Sept. 2011. <http://articles.latimes.com/2011/sep/15/news/la-pn-house-gop-jobs-act-20110915>.
Raum, Tom. "Small Dent in Jobless Rate Seen from Obama's Plan - Forbes.com." Information for the World's Business Leaders - Forbes.com. Web. 25 Sept. 2011. <http://www.forbes.com/feeds/ap/2011/09/24/general-us-obama-apos-s-jobs-shortfall_8698689.html>.
Silver, Nate. "On the Maddeningly Inexact Relationship Between Unemployment and Re-Election - NYTimes.com." Election Forecasts - FiveThirtyEight Blog - NYTimes.com. Web. 25 Sept. 2011. <http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/06/02/on-the-maddeningly-inexact-relationship-between-unemployment-and-re-election/>.
Stein, Sam. "White House Outlines $467 Billion In Savings To Pay For Jobs Act." Breaking News and Opinion on The Huffington Post. Web. 25 Sept. 2011. <http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/09/12/obama-jobs-bill-payments_n_958560.html>.
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