U.S. economy better now than at Obama’s first State of the Union

As President Barack Obama delivers his State of the Union speech tonight, he presides over an economy much healthier than the one he inherited four years ago. Yet growth remains slow and unemployment high. In early 2009, the U.S. economy was in the midst of a full-blown panic sparked by the collapse of a housing bubble. Companies were slashing jobs. The unemployment rate was surging. Auto sales in January 2009 had reached a 26-year low. “You don’t need to hear another list of statistics to know that our economy is in crisis,” Obama said in his first State of the Union address in February 2009. The numbers were frightening. Employers cut 794,000 jobs in January 2009 and 4.5 million from November 2008 through April 2009. Home prices plunged 19% in the 12 months that ended in January 2009. Eventually, they fell by a third overall before bottoming in late 2011. Perhaps the clearest barometer of the pain was soaring unemployment. The unemployment rate was 7.8% in January 2009, just below the current 7.9%. But only two months later, in March 2009, it was nearly a full point higher—8.7%. By October it had peaked at 10%. Read the full story here.