Barack Obama,  Unemployment Rate

Gallup: U.S. Unemployment Up Slightly to 9.8% in January

This will not help President Obama as he prepares to run for re-election.

Unemployment, as measured by Gallup without seasonal adjustment, increased to 9.8% at the end of January — up from 9.6% at the end of December, but down from 10.9% a year ago.

Some political pundits maintain that if the unemployment rate does not decrease to below 8% that Obama will NOT win re-election. So far, economic conditions do not look favorable for him.

Comparing Gallup’s unemployment and underemployment rates so far in 2011 with those for the same periods in 2010 provides something of a seasonally adjusted view of Gallup’s jobs data. Unemployment and underemployment are now at least one point below the rates of a year ago, reflecting modest improvement over the past year.

Still, Gallup’s measures paint a real-time picture of the current job realities on the ground: nearly 1 in 10 Americans in the U.S. workforce are unemployed, nearly one out of five are underemployed, and the nation’s overall hiring situation has not improved over the past four to six months.

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