The Unemployment Myth

On the heels of the new unemployment numbers, Kerry is on the campaign trail barking about how bad the Bush economy is. Unemployment is currently 5.3% Sure this is off of 2000 lows (around 4%), but still an excellent number historically. I don't see how the Bush campaign has allowed Kerry to frame the issue this way. Unemployment was around 5.6% in the US when Clinton won by a landslide...mostly because of a solid economy. I went to the census bureau and pulled up some historical unemployment numbers. Here are unemployment rates of the past:
1940: 14.6%, 1950: 5.3%, 1960: 5.5%, 1970: 4.9%, 1975: 8.5%, 1980: 7.1%, 1985: 7.2%, 1990: 5.6%, 1995: 5.6%, 2000: 4%, Today: 5.3%. LOOK AT THE DATA. 5.3% is low! Its not fantastic, but its very, very good.

Contrast our 5.3% unemployment with other economically powerful nations - Canada: 6.6%, Australia: 5.6%, France: 9.4%, Germany: 9.9%, Italy: 8.6%, Sweden: 6.8%. What is Kerry complaining about? The Bush economy is doing just fine, thank you.