As a result of the recession that began in 2007 and continued
into 2009, the unemployment rate rose to as high as 10 percent. By
the time of the presidential and congressional elections of 2012,
the economic recovery was under way, but the unemployment rate was
still around 8 percent. The Republicans saw this as evidence that
the Democrats’ economic policies had failed to deal with the
lasting effects of the recession. They, in fact, blamed the lasting
high unemployment...