President Obama By The Numbers

Barack Obama was sworn in as the 44th President of the United States on January 20th, 2009.

President Obama is currently campaigning for a second term, and will square off against Mitt Romney in the fall.

Let's take a look at some numbers from President Obama's first term that you might find interesting:

Unemployment Rate in January of 2009 - 7.6%
Current Unemployment Rate - 8.3%
High Unemployment Rate During Obama's Term - 10.2%

Source: Historical Unemployment Rates

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Dow Jones Industrial Average Close on January 20th, 2009 - 7,949.09
NASDAQ Close on January 20th, 2009 - 1,529.33
S&P 500 Close on January 20th, 2009 - 805.22

Dow Jones Industrial Average Close on September 4th, 2012 - 13,035.94
NASDAQ Close on September 4th, 2012 - 3,075.06
S&P 500 Close on September 4th, 2012 - 1,404.94

Source: Where Did the DJIA/NASDAQ/S&P 500 Trade On..

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US National Debt Load on January 20th, 2009 - $10,626,877,048.913.08

Breakdown -

Public Debt Load - $6,307,310,739,681.66
Intragovernmental Holdings - $4,319,566,309,231.42

US National Debt Load on September 1st, 2012 - $16,015,769,788,215.80

Breakdown -

Public Debt Load - $11,272,625,663,662.57
Intragovernmental Holdings - $4,743,144,124,553.23

Source: United States Debt Clock

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Top Three Foreign Holders of US Debt as of December, 2009:

China - $894.8 billion
Japan - $765.7 billion
Oil Exporters - $207.4 billion

Top Three Foreign Holders of US Debt as of May, 2012:

China - $1.17 trillion
Japan - $1.1 trillion
Oil Exporters - $260.9 billion

Source: Largest Foreign Holders of US Debt

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Debt Ceiling - $11.315 trillion on January 20th, 2009

Current Debt Ceiling - $16.394 trillion

Source: Debt Ceiling History

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Cost of an Ounce of Gold in 2009 - $972.35
Cost of an Ounce of Gold in 2012 - $1695.80

Source: What Did It Cost

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Barack Obama Ratings as of January, 2009:

Approval: 67%
Disapproval: 14%

Barack Obama Ratings as of September 1st, 2012:

Approval: 45%
Disapproval: 48%

Source: Obama Job Approval

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Number of Bank Failures in 2009 - 140
Number of Bank Failures So Far in 2012 - 38

Source: A History of Bank Failures in the United States

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January 2009 Unemployment Rates:

Michigan - 11.3%
California - 9.7%
Nevada - 9.6%

July 2012 Unemployment Rates

Michigan - 9.0%
California - 10.7%
Nevada - 12.0%

Source: Historical State Unemployment Rates

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Total Nonfarm Payroll Job Growth

January, 2009 - Negative 818,000
July, 2012 - Projected Positive 163,000

Source: BLS.gov

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Zillow Home Value Index:

February 1st, 2009

US - $166k
NY Metro - $385k
LA Metro - $421k
Chicago Metro - $214k

July 1st, 2012

US - 152k
NY Metro - $341k
LA Metro - $387k
Chicago Metro - $162k

Source: Zillow.com

Filed under: General Knowledge

5 COMMENTS - What Say You?

Comment by John C. Bossolt on September 06, 2012 @ 2:38 pm

And the Preezy still has a good chance of re-election! Are there really that many ignorant American voters? Or has the media been criminally complicit in propaganda, obscuring negative Dem news, twisting facts, and manufacturing scandals and pushing slanderous sewage about the GOP?

Or both?

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Comment by J G on September 07, 2012 @ 12:11 pm

Dave, love this site and all the research you do to put things together. For the most part, you present your facts and figures in a very balanced, spin-free manner. But this report really just doesn't cut your own mustard.

You know full well there a series of severe economic catastrophes occurred in 2008 - before the 44th president took office - and they created a massive amount of negative economic momentum that took a year to stop and turn back around.

For example, using YOUR site to get the numbers: You took the time to show that UE went from 7.6% in 2009 to 10.2%, but you left out the fact that UE hit that peak in Oct 2009 and has been on a steady decrease ever since. You also left out the glaring fact that in 2008, during Bush's final year, UE skyrocketed from 4.8% in Feb to 7.2% by Dec 2008. UE had nearly doubled in the 11 months prior to Obama taking the oath, and within 9 months he had stopped the tail spin and was turning things around.

Numbers are awesome, as your site proves. What is even more awesome is when people, like yourself who have compiled the numbers so wonderfully, use those numbers to speak the TRUTH, not merely regurgitate "facts".

Obama isn't perfect, no president is, and I have issues with his tenure myself, but he hasn't made anything worse. And in your heart, you know this to be true.

So, how about you validate your personal integrity, and re-do this report and show 2006 through 2012 and graph everything out on annual, or better yet 6-month, increments.

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Comment by Dave Manuel on September 07, 2012 @ 6:02 pm

Hi J G

Thanks for the comments.

I try to be as fair as possible - I receive an equal number of emails accusing me of being a Democratic/Republican shill, so I must be doing something right.

I spend hours per day maintaining this site and adding new information, so that people can easily research the numbers and make their own decisions. This is why I linked to every data source within the article.

I've written thousands of articles on this site, and I think that I do a pretty good job of being fair.

My personal integrity is just fine - all I want to do is create an easy-to-use resource so that people can easily find historical information on unemployment, debt, etc. I also incur significant expense from this site and don't ask for a dime (I don't even have banner or contextual advertisements - this is all done to increase the positivity of the user's experience).

Sorry that you didn't like this article.

Regards

Dave

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Comment by steve c on September 08, 2012 @ 10:02 pm

Wish we had a site like this for Australia

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Comment by Ray Tallady on November 09, 2012 @ 10:44 am

Dave
I'm trying to understand what the debt is. I'm tried of listening to my unread mis informed friends tell me how terrible each party is. I just want to understand what is true.
Thanks for presenting the facts. I'll will be looking at your web site for more explanations and facts.
Ray

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