As John Steele Gordon noted, the unemployment rate ticked up slightly last month, but it’s still just below 8 percent — a psychological barrier that would have certainly hurt Obama days before the election. Still, it’s important to remember where we were supposed to be at this point, at least according to the Obama administration’s 2009 estimates that were used to sell the stimulus package to the public. Jim Pethokoukis writes: 

Back in early 2009, White House economists Christina Romer and Jared Bernstein predicted the unemployment rate would be 5.2% in October 2012 if Congress passed the $800 billion stimulus. As the above chart shows, they weren’t even close.

Click above for the chart, which, as Pethokoukis notes, isn’t even close. In fact, their estimates of what the unemployment rate would look like without the stimulus is much lower than our current rate. 

According to Fox News, we might be waiting a long time for the numbers the White House predicted:

The October numbers allow President Obama to argue the economy is technically growing under his watch. But they also allow Mitt Romney to argue that the new jobs are not making much of a dent in the unemployment problem. Both campaigns quickly set to work putting their spin on data that, if nothing else, underscores the slow pace of the recovery. 

Former Bureau of Labor Statistics chief Keith Hall told Fox Business Network that at this rate, “we’re still talking nine or 10 years” before the economy gets back to normal.

Remember when Obama said he could get it done in three, otherwise it would be a “one-term proposition”? Now we’re told even if he’s reelected not to expect the economy to bounce back until well after he’s out of office. How’s that for accountability?