Rmoney: "He said that by now we'd have unemployment at 5.4%." WTF?

[AtomicKitten]

9. So 2 economists before joining the O admin predicated this before he was sworn in.

Thanks for the heads-up on this. This is waaaaaaaay before they realized how bad the recession was. It looks pretty anorexic to me. Romney is really, really reaching on this one.

5.4% unemployment

Claim: Romney said Obama said unemployment would be 5.4% by now.

Facts: Two economists who would soon join the Obama administration issued a report in early January 2009 – before Obama's inauguration – predicting that an economic stimulus plan would prevent unemployment from rising above 8% and would push it down to about 5.4% by the third quarter of 2012. However, the economists underestimated the severity of the recession. Even without the stimulus, they forecast in that report that the jobless rate would be 5.9% by now.

Last year, the Commerce Department said the slump was far worse than it had estimated, with the economy contracting almost 9% in the fourth quarter of 2008 and 5.3% in the first quarter of 2009.