What Was the Unemployment rate when Obama took office (compared to now)? Updated for April 2015

What was the unemployment rate when Bush left office and Obama was inaugurated and took office? What was the unemployment rate when Obama came into office?  7.8%

(Unemployment rate then and now on the graph below.)

This report has been updated HERE for June 2015.

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June 2015 numbers were released Thursday, July 2.
Details HERE. 

June: +223,000 jobs, Unemp. Rate down to 5.3%.

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What was the unemployment rate after Obama's first full month in office (February 2009)?  8.3%

What was the unemployment rate at peak?  10.0%

What is the unemployment rate now?  Today's unemployment rate (April 2015's)?   5.4%  

April 2015 Jobs Numbers, Unemployment Reports Listed HERE

All Latest Jobs and Unemployment Reports HERE

How many people were looking for work when Obama was inaugurated; how many were working?  And how many people are looking for work and how many are employed now?

Please read below the graph.

The following chart shows the unemployment rate in three month intervals plus the last three months:

Why are there two lines, one for "Seas Adjusted" and one for "Unadjusted" in the chart above?  This is explained at the bottom of the article.

• What Caused the Rise in Unemployment When Obama Took Office?  Obama caused the unemployment rate to rise?  (Continue reading; the answer  is below the fold.)
•  What Was the Unemployment Rate When Bush Took Office?  How high did it rise?  (The answer is also below the fold.)  

The Unemployment Rate When Obama Took Office:

• For the record, when Obama took office in January 2009, the "official" unemployment rate in seasonally adjusted numbers was 7.8%, with 12,079,000 people reporting themselves as unemployed and actively looking. 142,153,000 people were working in January 2009.* (These numbers are adjusted slightly since original publication as the Bureau of Labor Statistics updates its numbers.  The original January 2009 unemployment rate reported by the BLS in February 2009 was 7.6%)  
• In "raw" numbers not adjusted for seasonal variance, the unemployment rate was 8.5% with 13,009,000 people reporting themselves as unemployed and actively looking for work.  140,436,000 people were working in numbers not adjusted for seasonal variance.

The Unemployment Rate at its Peak: 

• At the "trough" (bottom in terms of jobs) of the recession in late 2009/early 2010, the "official" unemployment rate in seasonally adjusted numbers climbed to 10.0% in October 2009 with 15,382,000 people (out of a labor force of 153,887,000) reporting themselves as unemployed.   138,421,000 were working in October 2009; however, the lowest number of people working was reported in December 2009, when 138,025,000 people (in seasonally adjusted numbers) were working.    
• In "raw" numbers not adjusted for seasonal variance, the unemployment rate reached a peak of 10.6% in January 2010 with 16,147,000 (out of a labor force of 152,957,000) reporting themselves as unemployed and actively looking for work.  Only 136,809,000 were working (in "raw" unadjusted numbers) in January 2010.

The Unemployment Rate NOW:

• Now, in April 2015, the "official" unemployment rate in seasonally adjusted numbers is 5.4% (actually 5.44%), with 8,549,000 (out of a large labor force of 157,072,000) unemployed and actively looking for work. 148,523,000 people are working now.  Last month 148,331,000 were working.  This is an increase of 192,000 people working in seasonally adjusted numbers.  
• The unemployment rate declined 0.1% to 5.4%.  The number of unemployed decreased by 26,000 while the civilian labor force increased by 166,000 in April.  (Actually, the unemployment rate dropped from 5.47% to 5.44%, for a decrease of .03%.) 
• We have 1,652,000 more people in the labor force than we did in April 2014; 2,799,000 more people are employed than a year ago, and 1,147,000 fewer people are unemployed than were unemployed a year ago in April 2014.  (The unemployment rate has now decreased 0.8% in the year since April 2014.)  

To Summarize the Unemployment Rate Now Compared to When Obama Took Office:

• Using seasonally adjusted numbers, the unemployment rate was 7.8% (and rising quickly) when Obama took office, and it is 5.4% (and generally falling) today. 
• 12,058,000 were officially unemployed back then, and 8,549,000 are unemployed today.
• The unemployment rate has dropped 2.4% since Obama took office (even after increasing 2.2% during this first months in office).  
• The number of unemployed has decreased 3,509,000 since Obama took office, even after increasing about 2,500,000 during Obama's first months in office.   

What Was the Alternate U-6 (U6) Unemployment Rate When Obama Took Office?

(I started to keep track of the U-6 number here in September 2012.  The U-6 number is based on the total of unemployed and underemployed as a percent of the total of the civilian labor force and the underemployed.  The underemployed includes, in addition to the "official" unemployed, two groups of people:  1.  The number of people working part-time who want full-time work but can't find that work.  2.  The number of people who have not looked for work in the past month but are now ready to look for work.  These people did not look for work in the past month for one of these reasons:  Discouragement, sickness, childcare issues, transportation, education or training, "other".  All of these people had looked for work during the past year.)    

• The alternate unemployment rate was 14.1% when Obama took office in January 2009.  By February 2009, it had grown to 15.1%.  (The data reported in February reflects data collected as of the week of February 12th, 2009.) 
• The alternate unemployment rate (U-6) peaked at 17.4% in October 2009. 
• The alternate unemployment rate is 10.8% now, in April 2015. A year ago, the alternate unemployment rate was 12.3%.  The main reason for the 1.5% decrease over the past year was a decrease in all components of the alternate unemployment rate, including significant declines in the number of "regular" unemployed, the number of "discouraged and marginally attached" workers, and the number of "involuntary part-timers; that is, those people who are working part-time but would prefer full-time employment.
• The number of discouraged workers has declined 3.4% year over year; the number of "other marginally attached workers" has declined 1.3% over the past year; the number of involuntary part-time workers has declined a whopping 11.8% over the past year.
• The number of people unemployed more than 15 weeks has declined 26% over the past year; the number of long-term unemployed (over 26 weeks unemployed) has also declined 26% over the past year. 

What Caused the Rise in the Unemployment Rate When Obama Took Office?  Why did the Unemployment Rate Continue to Increase for 11 months after Obama took office?

These are questions I have received in my email, and I thought I would answer here.

Well...as just mentioned, the unemployment rate was on its way up with a bullet starting in early 2008. The unemployment rate was 4.4% in mid 2007 before the full impact of the housing crash hit the labor market. Employment in construction hit a max in mid 2006 and had already started down by mid 2007, but most other employment sectors were not impacted. But by late 2007, the entire economy was starting to feel the impact of the housing crash. In a year and a half, from June 2007 until January 2009, the unemployment rate went from 4.4% to the 7.8% discussed above. 

That's why we say that Obama inherited a rapidly-increasing unemployment rate. Why did it continue to rise after Obama took office? It takes a while for any government policy to take effect. Both TARP, the bank bailout signed by Bush in late 2008, and ARRA, the stimulus signed by Obama in February 2009, needed time to take effect, and that simply did not happen immediately. How long does it take to turn around the proverbial aircraft carrier vs. a speed boat? However, even though it took 9 months for the unemployment rate to max out (see the graph above) and start decreasing, the rate of increase slowed down by June 2009.

We can also think of the analogy of a fire: If a building is burning down, the fire department is called. It takes time for the fire department to put out the fire; it takes time for the fire to cool; it takes times for the debris to be hauled away. Only then can rebuilding start. And you certainly don't blame the fire department or the people who clean up the debris for the fire, do you? 

The question, "What Caused the Rise in the Unemployment Rate After Obama Took Office?" really makes no sense... The unemployment rate was rising rapidly before Obama took office, and it took a few months for policies to kick in and stem the job bloodbath. A better question would be "What Caused the Rise in the Unemployment Rate Starting in 2007?" The answer to that would be the housing crisis and the resulting crisis in banks and lending institutions. But that is outside the scope of this article.

What sources are you using for the unemployment data?

All of my employment number reports and graphs are based on monthly reports and data published by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Monthly numbers reports are based on the monthly Employment Situation Report and Database tables published at the www.BLS.gov website.

The Employment Situation report includes month over month and year over year jobs numbers. 

The database tables that I use for the numbers here are: 

1. Employment Level LNS12000000 (Seasonally adjusted) & LNU12000000 (Unadjusted).
2. Unemployment Level LNS13000000 (Seasonally adjusted) & LNU13000000 (Unadjusted).
3. Unemployment Rate LNS14000000 (Seasonally adjusted) & LNU14000000 (Unadjusted). 

You can find these tables by searching for these table numbers at the BLS website. My analysis is taken from the monthly BLS data copied to an Excel spreadsheet every month. I calculate detailed percentage increases/decreases, 3 month numbers, year to date numbers, and I compare jobs numbers to those at the time of Obama's inauguration and at the "trough" of the recession.

Has Obama Redefined Unemployment?

No. 

No administration can define or redefine unemployment, nor what counts as a job or a worker in the BLS reports.

Changes are made to the questionnaires that are used to determine "employment" from time to time, but these questionnaires have not been changed for years.

My article about the subject is HERE, with links to BLS information about this.

Are independent contractors counted?  What about people who no longer receive unemployment benefits or who have exhausted all of their unemployment benefits?

Someone left a comment:

The one thing none of these reports show nor do any of the Government reports, and that is the number of independent contractors that are unemployed or the number of unemployed that the benefits have run out and they gave up on trying. These added in would make these numbers on the reports look miserable.

Both groups of people, the independent contractors and the unemployed without benefits who are still actively looking for work, ARE included in these numbers.  ALL numbers of people who are unemployed, working part-time, or who want work have come down significantly over the past five years.

  

Why are there two lines, one for "Seas Adjusted" and one for "Unadjusted" in the chart above?

The Bureau of Labor Statistics uses seasonal adjustments to adjust for the volatility in the labor market from one month to the next.  The relatively even declining red line above shows the unemployment rate based on seasonally adjusted numbers.  The jagged green line shows the unemployment rate based on "real", "raw" numbers; the unadjusted rate.  Notice that the green line goes up in January (after holiday layoffs) and July (school-related layoffs), and it goes down in October and April, which are strong months for workers.  (Employees are all back to school in October, and employers are staffing up for the holidays.  Schools are also full in April and employers are starting to staff up for summer, construction, vacation venues, etc.)  The red line helps us to compare the unemployment rate over a period of months; the green line, however, reflects "reality":  Your friends, neighbors, and family members actually working or not working.  

All April highlights and reports are listed HERE.