Myth Debunk

Debunking Political and Historical Myths

Obama Economic Record

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Obama’s Economic Indicators #1

This is the first of two infographics I’ll fact check, it is comparing what the state of the Economy was in January 2009, when Bush left Office, and Obama took office, and is trying to compare what Obama was left with, and what he has today. It chooses specific Economic indicators which attempt to make Obama look worse.  The second of the two I will check is using other economic indicators attempts to make Obama look better since 2009. I realize some of the “Today” data may be out of date, but since I found the image posted on fFacebookin August 2014, I’m using those numbers, since it was posted then with the intent to reflect that time period.

Unemployment Americans

January 2009 11.6 million, close enough to the listed 12 million
http://www.bls.gov/opub/ted/2009/feb/wk2/art02.htm

August 2014 : 9.1 Million is quite a bit lower then the 13.9 million shown
http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.nr0.htm

Unemployment Rate

January 2009: 7.6%
http://www.bls.gov/opub/ted/2009/feb/wk2/art02.htm

August 2014: 6.1%
http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.nr0.htm

Gas Prices

National Average Gas Prices:

Jan, 2009: $1.84
August 2014: $3.56

Gas prices go up with supply/demand and inflation, they spent a good majority of Bush’s last two years over $3 (including the still standing record daily average of $4.11 in July 2008) and the prices dropped due to the decreased global demand from the 2008/2009 global recession.
http://www.investopedia.com/articles/07/oil_gas.asp
http://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/hist/LeafHandler.ashx?n=PET&s=EMM_EPM0_PTE_NUS_DPG&f=M

Federal Debt

January 2009: 10.6 Trillion
http://www.treasurydirect.gov/NP/debt/search?startMonth=01&startDay=20&startYear=2009&endMonth=01&endDay=20&endYear=2009

September 2014: 17.7 trillion
http://www.treasurydirect.gov/NP/debt/search?startMonth=09&startDay=12&startYear=2014&endMonth=09&endDay=12&endYear=2014

Debt per person

Jan 2009: 10.6 trillion debt divided by 305 million population
$34,754 per person

Sept 2014: 17.7 trillion debt divided by 316 million population (population estimate from July 2013)
$56,012
http://www.mathworks.com/matlabcentral/trendy/trends/1218
http://www.census.gov/popclock/
http://www.usnews.com/opinion/articles/2008/12/31/us-population-2009-305-million-and-counting

Food Stamps

January 2009: 32 Million
http://frac.org/newsite/wp-content/uploads/2009/09/snapdata2009_january.pdf
August 2014: 47 Million
http://www.fns.usda.gov/sites/default/files/pd/SNAPsummary.pdf

Health Insurance Premiums

2009: $3515
2013: $4823

http://kff.org/interactive/premiums-and-worker-contributions/

Average Home Sales

2009: $245,200
2014: $339,100
https://www.census.gov/construction/nrs/pdf/uspricemon.pdf

And according to Zillow the median sale price was Jan 2009 $187k, and Julay 2014 was $217k (higher than every Month since Aug 2007) and United States home values have gone up 6.5% over the past year and Zillow predicts they will rise 2.7% within the next year.
http://www.zillow.com/home-values/

Obama Economic Indicators #2

5yearsobamaThis is the second infographic, using numbers attempting to make Obama look better.

The Dow Jones Industrial

On January 20, 2009, the Dow closed at 7,949.
https://www.google.com/finance/historical?cid=983582&startdate=Jan+20%2C+2009&enddate=Jan+20%2C+2009&num=30&ei=zecUVNCaJsjP8waSvIHABA

The Dow had a record high close on July 16, 2014 of 17,138.
https://www.google.com/finance/historical?cid=983582&startdate=Jul+16%2C+2014&enddate=Jul+16%2C+2014&num=30&ei=0OgUVIigLJHh8wbF04DwCQ

Unemployment Rate

January 2009 Unemployment Rate: 7.8%

August 2014 Unemployment Rate: 6.1%
http://data.bls.gov/timeseries/LNS14000000

GDP Growth

2009: -5.5%

http://www.bea.gov/newsreleases/national/gdp/2009/gdp109f.htm

August 2104 : 4.2%

http://www.bea.gov/newsreleases/national/gdp/2014/gdp2q14_2nd.htm

Deficit GDP 

Jan 2009: -9.8%

Dec. 2013: -4.1%
http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/series/FYFSGDA188S

Consumer Confidence

January 2009: 40.0

August 2014 92.4
http://future.aae.wisc.edu/data/monthly_values/by_area/998?grid=true

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Macroeconomics (McGraw-Hill Series Economics)


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  • Tionia

    Is there anyway you can do this for 2015? I keep hearing how everything is worse because of President Obama but from what I see that can’t be true. Thanks so much!

    • BJA

      I’ll run through the sources and look for updates, though it’s unlikely much has been compiled yet as it’s still halfway through the year, and I think they tend to do statistics year-end.

      • Tionia

        I do know that Politifact does some kind of checking every 3 months which may help if you trust them. I posted on my facebook page your Reagan/Obama Deficit story I hope that is OK with you? I didn;t see anything saying I could not. If that is not OK I will remove it just let me know. Thanks for doing this I try to do kinda the same thing on a much smaller scale when I see things on facebook that I know or suspect are not true and there is sure a lot of that going around… They keep telling the lies expecting them to turn ito truth… I hope at some point they will learn you cannot make up facts…

        • BJA

          Feel free, everything is public knowledge and free to share 🙂

          • Tionia

            THANKS!

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