1. In January 2009, the Obama Administration forecast there would be 137.6 million jobs at the end of 2010 under their stimulus plan.  Instead, there were just 130.3 million jobs in December 2010.  Now, even 19 months later in July 2012, there are just 133.2 million jobs in the U.S. economy – still 4.4 million jobs short of the Administration’s forecast for late 2010.
2. The pace of job creation during the “Obama recovery” is slower than during the Great Depression.
3. Since January 2009, the number of full-time employees has fallen by 1.5 million.  Meanwhile, part-time employees rose by 1.6 million – accounting for all of the “net” employment growth in the Obama years.
4. During the Obama Administration, total employment has grown by 33,000, while the number of people not in the labor force has grown by 7.8 million.  This means that, during the Obama years, new workforce dropouts have outnumbered new employees by 237 to 1.

Unemployment has been consistently above 8 percent – not below it like the Administration promised.

5. Unemployment has now been above 8 percent for 42 consecutive months, the longest since the Great Depression.
6. Today’s 8.3 percent unemployment rate remains far above the 5.6 percent rate the Administration predicted for July 2012 in their January 2009 report on the projected effects of their stimulus plan.
7. If the unemployment rate included the “invisible” unemployed (that is, discouraged workers who either dropped out or never joined the workforce), the July 2012 unemployment rate would be 11.2 percent:

8. In July 2012, 12.8 million Americans were officially unemployed.  That’s over 700,000 more than when President Obama took office in January 2009.  
9. In July 2012, 5.2 million Americans were long-term unemployed (that is, for over six months).  That’s nearly double the number when President Obama took office in January 2009.
10. The “Obama Misery Index” shows that unemployment and debt have risen by over 80 percent since the start of the Obama Administration.

Bonus Fact: Young people are experiencing some of the harshest effects of the “Obama Recovery.”

Young people are experiencing some of the worst unemployment and underemployment rates today.  As the New York Times put it, “For this generation of young people, the future looks bleak. Only one in six is working full time. Three out of five live with their parents or other relatives.”  According to the Financial Times, this is harming the economy and broader recovery: “With more young people living at home, the rate of household formation – a leading driver of housing demand – is now on par with the 1940s, according to a Harvard study. Just 600,000 to 800,000 new households were formed each year from 2007-2011, compared with 1.2 million to 1.3 million a year in the previous four years.”