News In Brief

Re-election and the unemployment rate

Kai Ryssdal Jul 8, 2011

A final note on the way out, playing off where we started today. Canada and its 28,000 jobs last month. That’s like 280,000 jobs here once you adjust for population size.

There’ll be plenty more economics to talk about as next year’s presidential election heats up, but here’s a data point to start the discussion. The only president since World War II re-elected with an unemployment rate above 6 percent was Ronald Reagan in 1984. It was 7.2 percent on Election Day.

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