THE DAILY TELEGRAPH: As the president prepares his State of the Union address, the future looks more hopeful – the US economy is recovering, Republicans are weak and he is untainted by scandal.
For each of his three years in office it has been well above that, peaking at 10 per cent in 2010. But crucially for the White House, and for the country, this most vital indicator, the release of which unemployed workers and Washington’s army of pundits alike anticipate keenly every month, is moving in the right direction.
Unemployment is now at 8.5 per cent, the lowest since February 2009, Mr Obama’s first full month in office. And it is not the only encouraging number. Gross domestic product is creeping up, the stock market is nearly double the low reached following the financial debacle of autumn 2008 and consumer confidence is returning.
Republican activists and voters caught up in the excitement of their party’s primary campaign tend to assume rather gleefully that the sluggish economy will doom Obama to the ignominy of a single term. They lap up candidates’ routine denigrations of the president as a “radical” driving the United States to “European-style socialism”, and harp on the danger of the world’s most powerful economy facing a Greek-style collapse. » | Alex Spillius | Monday, January 23, 2012
