When President Obama ran for office in 2008, he promised to bring the country “hope” and “change.” 

He certainly delivered change, but not for the better. The unemployment rate has gone from 7.8 percent in January of 2009 to a high of 10.1 percent in October of 2009. Jim Pethokoukis recently noted we have experienced “the longest streak of 8%-plus unemployment since the Great Depression” and “the U.S. economy hasn’t been below 8% unemployment since Obama took office in January 2009.”

In the U.S. Department of Labor’s March 2012 Employment Situation report released Friday, unemployment figures show the rate dropping to 8.2%, but the number of people not in the labor force is at an all time high – 87,897,000. When Obama took office in 2009, there were approximately 81 million not in the labor force. 

The Wall Street Journal reported this weekend that “the jobless rate, which is obtained from a separate survey of households, edged down to 8.2% from 8.3%, its lowest point in three years. However, that decline was due less to new hiring than people abandoning their job searches.”

According to the report, 120,000 jobs were created, but an additional 164,000 people dropped out of the labor force.  The current unemployment rate, if calculated to account for the number of people who would like to work, but have given up looking, would be even higher. The “hope” so many had in 2008 has been replaced with hopelessness.

House Republicans have passed legislation that promotes economic growth and removes barriers that hinder America’s job creators. The bipartisan JOBS Act was recently passed by both chambers of Congress and signed into law.  Learn more about how the Republican jobs plan and budget cuts spending, fixes our tax code, removes excessive regulation and expands American energy production at jobs.GOP.gov.  Track the full list of House-passed jobs bills on this page at ellmers.house.gov.

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