Unemployment was 7.5% the month carter got voted out of office in 1980, and after hitting a height of 10.8%, Reagan got it down to 7.2% the day he won 49 states and routed Jimmy Carter’s sidekick.
The key point you have to keep in mind is that the reason why unemployment was shooting up in Jimmy’s last year was that he and Paul Volcker had the brilliant idea that the way to get rid of double digit inflation was to trigger double digit unemployment. THAT’S why people voted Jimmy Carter out. The awfulness was so bad that they developed a new term for it… Misery Index.
Of course, Jimmy had other problems- Looking ineffectual against Iran and Russia (kind of the way the Bamster looks ineffectual in Libya and Afghanistan). Spikes in the price of Gasoline because Jimmy didn’t like the oil industry. (Again… like Obama).
Jesus in a Go-Cart, man, this is kind of like a rerun of Jimmy Carter, except that no one is bringing back Disco. so we have that going for us.