High Unemployment-What Will the Democrats Say?

Unemployment averaged 7.1 percent in 1977, declined in the next two years to 6.1 and 5.8 percent, and jumped upward again in 1980 to 1977’s 7.1. For January 1981, the month the Carter administration departed, the statisticians registered a figure of 7.5 percent. As a 1980 candidate, Ronald Reagan quite properly excoriated Carter’s job performance, and so stole the unemployment issue from its traditional Democratic custodians.