With the jobs numbers increasing for some time now, there’s no doubt that Obama has a new hurdle to deal with: rising expectations. With the Presidential elections to take place in November, Obama finds himself in a quandary, thanks to his Republican counterparts that won’t stop criticizing him whether or not the job numbers increase or decrease every month.
Andrew Baumann, vice president of the Democratic polling firm Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Research, understands the dilemma that Obama finds himself in, by saying, “It’s something he can’t really avoid. There’s no way for him to reap the benefits of an improved economy without having to deal with higher expectations.”
Over the last two months, the number of jobs added was much better than the projections made by experts on Wall Street, where December saw an increase by 203,000 jobs and January posted an increase of 243000 jobs. If that’s not enough, the unemployment rate dropped from 8.7 to 8.3 percent.
The drop in the unemployment rate saw a bullish stock market and a boost to consumer confidence since these numbers clearly suggested that an economic recovery was on the cards, and much faster than expected.
Obama’s numbers in the polls have risen due to this despite the fact that there are still several Americans who are stuck with lower incomes and home values, thanks to a recession that ended in the summer of 2009.
While the Obama administration suggests against reading too much into monthly job reports, outside economists have upped the number of jobs for February to about 210000. While there is no doubt that his political opponents are poised to attack, but what could be the undoing of the President is the fact that people are expecting the jobs growth numbers to snowball.