As frustrated as the American people have been with one of the highest unemployment rates since the Great Depression, the recent decline in unemployment is starting to look increasingly favorable for the White House.
After a high of 10.1 percent during Barack Obama’s presidency, the U.S. unemployment rate dropped to 8.5 percent as of last month which, contrastingly, is the lowest it’s been in three years, according to USA Today and The Washington Post.
The question is whether this will strengthen Obama’s chances of re-election.
On paper, the unemployment trend looks remarkably similar to the time of President Ronald Reagan’s re-election and some speculate the trend could influence Obama’s campaign as it did for Reagan 28 years ago.
“The better the economy looks at election time, the better he will do,” said Brandon Hatch, a junior majoring in marketing, from Provo. “But hopefully we as a country remember the weak economy we had through the rest of his presidency if it improves a lot between now and then.”
While the unemployment rate has dropped fairly consistently over the last 22 months, it’s been extremely slow and doesn’t show much progress, saif Paul Booren, a senior from Sherwood, Ore., double majoring in political science and economics.
“This is the slowest receding unemployment rate since 1975,” Booren said. “I don’t think a lot of the American public is seeing a huge change.”
For some students, it’s change the country needs, but with so many factors involved, it’s hard to find a good place to start.
“I think there should be a focus on deregulation and on trying to bolster the private sector rather than government spending,” Booren said. “We need to focus away from the government solving the problem and let the private sector solve the problem.”
According to The Huffington Post, most of the GOP candidates are proposing plans that involve just that: reducing the size of government. In fact, several of the top candidates, including Mitt Romney, Gov. Ron Paul and Rick Santorum, have proposed similar plans for job and economy growth throughout the country.
All plans include solutions such as cutting taxes and government spending, though the rate at which they are cut differs between candidates.
On the other hand, while the majority of GOP candidates are searching for long-term solutions, Obama’s recent Jobs Act proposal, that was voted down by the senate a few months ago, included a combination of tax cuts and new spending that would temporarily create jobs.
Some of the proposed solutions included $270 billion in payroll and other tax cuts, $175 billion for new roads, school reparations and other projects and extension of unemployment benefits.
“I know [Obama’s jobs bill] has been put forward with good intentions, but I don’t think it does the job,” Sen. Joe Lieberman, I-Conn., told The Huffington Post. “To me, what we’ve got to do is restore confidence of people in the business sector to invest. That’s what’s missing in our economy.”
