October 27, 2010
David Leonhardt has an interesting discussion of public attitudes towards President Obama and the Democrats on the eve of the elections. He notes that the stimulus helped, but the economy is not where President Obama’s advisers expected it to be right now.
It is worth noting that President Obama’s advisers seriously underestimated the severity of the downturn. They had projected that even without any stimulus package the unemployment rate would peak at just over 9.0 percent. In fact, the unemployment rate peaked at 10.1 percent last fall, even with the stimulus in effect. It had already reached 9.4 percent in May, just as the first effects of the stimulus were being felt. A major reason for the inadequacy of the stimulus was this failure to fully appreciate the severity of the downturn.
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