Cafferty File

No president since FDR has won re-election with unemployment over 7.2%. Is President Obama doomed?

FROM CNN's Jack Cafferty:

Here's something that ought to keep President Obama up at night: No president since FDR has won re-election with unemployment over 7.2%.

The unemployment rate may have dropped to 8.6% in November, but the picture isn't nearly as rosy as the White House would like us to believe.

Yes, it's the lowest it's been since March 2009, and it's getting closer to the 7.8% rate we had when Obama took office, but that's where the good news ends.

This job market still has a long way to go to recover from the financial crisis. A very long way.

In total, 8.8 million jobs have been lost since the recession started, and fewer than a third of those have been recovered.

More than 13 million people are still unemployed, and 43% of them have been out of work for more than six months.

Plus the current unemployment rate of 8.6% isn't even as good as it seems. That's because a big part of the rate decrease is due to more than 300,000 discouraged workers giving up entirely on their job searches and simply dropping out of the workforce. It's not due to job creation.

Speaking of job creation, employers added only 120,000 jobs in October. That's well below what economists say is needed just to keep up with population growth.

So numbers aside, the job outlook remains pretty bleak. Add in the disastrous housing market and the European debt crisis, which could pull our economy down even further, and Obama has his work cut out for him.

A recent CNN-Opinion Research Corporation poll shows only 15% of Americans say economic conditions are good. Six out of seven people say conditions are poor, with a majority saying "very poor."

Here's my question to you: No president since FDR has won re-election with unemployment over 7.2%. Is President Obama doomed?

Tune in to "The Situation Room" at 5 p.m. ET to see if Jack reads your answer on the air.

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