Why didn't Obama's stimulus plan keep unemployment below 8 percent as he promised it would?

Answer 1

President Obama never promised that unemployment would remain below 8%. Members of his economic transition team (who would become members of his administration once he was inaugurated) released a report in early January that essentially said that stimulus was needed and then projected what the unemployment picture would look like if the Congress provided some stimulus. They projected that without stimulus, the unemployment rate would hit about 9 percent in 2010 and with stimulus, it could hold just under 8 percent. Their projections were wrong. As was the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office that reported similar projections. The problem is that neither the incoming Obama administration (or outgoing Bush admin) or the CBO knew just how bad the recession really was. In the month they made the projection, the country lost 750,000 jobs. In February 2009, the nation lost another 650,000 jobs marking the first time since 1939 (we know what happened then) that the nation had lost at least 600,000 jobs in 3 consecutive months. In other words, everyone's projections were off because their economic models were based on inaccurate (and un-heard of) data.

In short, the President never "promised" to keep unemployment below 8%. In fact, before he picked curtains for the Oval Office it was already at 8.1%. This is just a political ploy by the President's political opponents. This stuff is complicated enough without misinformation.