Could Unemployment Numbers Cost Obama His Job?

After a week of tough economic news, the latest job numbers tell perhaps the most powerful story of economic pain that continues to wrack Americans. And it puts President Obama's 2012 re-election at risk.

The economy added just 54,000 jobs in May, far below forecasts, and the housing market hardly has a pulse.

It's become de rigueur to note that Franklin Delano Roosevelt in the late 1930s was the last American president reelected when the unemployment rate was above 7.2 percent.

Given the current 9.1 percent rate and stalled recovery, a number well above that appears a near certainty come Election Day 2012.

Obama faces not only that dismal harbinger, but something more immediate: increasing pressure from his party's liberal wing to refocus on job creation in a political environment now dominated by pressure to reduce the nation's debt.

"For most people, jobs are front and center," says Dean Baker of the Center for Economic and Policy Research.

"He really lost control of this debate early, and he has to try and get back on the theme of job growth," Baker says. "Or he'll sit through the rest of his term in stagnation."

Source: http://www.npr.org/2011/06/03/136899750/could-unemployment-numbers-cost-obama-his-job?ft=1&f=1003

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