Have the criteria used for determining the rate of unemployment changed since Bush left office?

He probably underestimated the depth of the mess that the last administration left our country in when he made that projection.

You are presuming that the Bureau of Labor Statistics only counts those receiving UC as unemployed. That's not the case. Unemployment compensation is not a factor in figuring the 8.3% rate. Check their website and pdf of January statistics. Look here to see that since 1/10 at least, the trend is down.Bureau of Labor Statistics Data

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You're a daisy if you do.
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Teleprompter Projection?

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C'mon, JP, what did you expect him to do after he starts turning away this sort...

NYT: Obama returns cash tied to Mexico 'casino czar' - politics - The New York Times - msnbc.com

It's all bad, right? Life for you guys is just one big freaking downer. Obama is the end of the world, the coming of Communism, a Caliphate, etc etc. Hey, I'm making a killing in the stock market right now, you should have bought GM instead of screaming "socialism".

You should be arguing against global corporatism instead. It has provided an unending flood of cheap, foreign made goods that are barely affordable for a decimated middle class working in low-pay service sector jobs. The repos have been concentrating only on the supply side, and that plan has run its course. They have nothing in the toolkit now. The change that's needed goes way beyond politics.

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1985 380SE Blue/Blue - 230,000 miles
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If you want to see success, look at Norway, Finland and Germany. They have heavily unionizes entitlement societies. So do we. We are failing. They are winning? Why? First, higher education is free to all who can demonstrate merit and brains. We, on the other hand, have been embarked on a campaign to make education so expensive only the rich will be able to afford it. They have single-payer health care systems, which removes health care costs from their product price structures. Start from there, and pretty soon you can figure out why we are becoming the world's largest basket case.

I sure didn't expect him to live the convictions of his words. Only a fool would expect that of President Hopery-Changery.

In effect the criteria absolutely HAS changed. With 2 to 3 million people having given up looking for work. The current "unemploment data" does NOT reflect these additional few million jobs in the percentage.

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Annoy a Liberal, Read the Constitution

Seriously? You can't compare data using different methodology. You could probably make a case that the difference between the U6 and "standard" methods has increased over time with the caveat that the behaviors at both ends of the curve are asymptotic.

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Unilateral disarmament is never a good idea.

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..I also have a 427 Cobra replica with an aluminum chassis.

Your logic is flawed, as you are aware. If people in this category were not counted as unemployed five years ago, but suddenly are today, the value of using historical data for comparative purposes becomes compromised. I have no doubt that, if people in this category were counted as unemployed five years ago, and this category was dropped as part of the employment count during the Obama administration, you and other Tea Partiers would scream that Obama was attempting to cook the stats for the benefit of his administration.

Not seriously. He knows better.

Guest Post: Illusion Of Recovery - Feelings Versus Facts | ZeroHedge

That's the real unemployment rate.

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