The unemployment situation has gotten better since Obama took presidency.

I apologize if Con feels belittled or insulted by the way I addressed his rebuttal. It was not my intention to make them feel unintelligent, but I was pointing out the serious flaws in his interpretation of the data. Since Con feels I have been scattered and disorganized, allow me to consolidate and elaborate on the points I have presented for the consideration of the voters. My Argument I have shown through evaluation and analyzing the past and current data that the rate of change of the unemployment rate has decreased significantly since Obama's inauguration (Round 2, Pro). Economists rely on trend evaluation in economics and finance to interpret data that is otherwise impossible to completely understand and compare [2]. This point shows that although the absolute value of the unemployment rate may have increased (which Con has not sufficiently proven either, as I will address later) the rate that this value is changing at has gone from a positive (Obama began his term as president when the unemployment situation was worsening) to what is now a negative (meaning the unemployment rate is decreasing), thus the unemployment situation has gotten better since Obama became president. Refutations to this argument (round 2, Con) Con has stated these numbers were mere guesses, and has stated that he could just as easily come up with "extremely similar equations" that would actually support his case. However, after challenging Con to follow through on these suppositions, he has declined the opportunity to do so, and thus has retracted or invalidated (a word Con doesn't seem to like) this rebuttal. Con attempts to dismiss the mathematical proof as being unnecessary, because he believes it is in his favor to analyze the data from a simpler perspective; the before and after. However, even this argument fell through after I pointed out that Obama was inaugurated more than half way through January, 2009, and the analysis of the unemployment rate should actually begin in February, since this was the first full month in which he held office. When I showed Con the corrected calculations they were actually not supportive of Con's argument at all, as I will show: Con's calculations January 2009 - 7.8% April 12, 2012 - 8.2% Percent change - .4% (+) Corrected calculations February 2009 - 8.3% April 12, 2012 - 8.2% Percent change - .1% ( - ) Con dismissed the correction as being false, and sourced a supporting document that "the official unemployment report released by the Bureau of Labor and Statistics says the unemployment rate in January of 2009 when Obama took office was actually 7.6% (straight from the official report)". The report does not contain the phrase "Obama took office", "took Office", or even "Obama", so either Con is lying or they are distorting their source. They argue that the numbers were calculated at the end of January, however this source (http://data.bls.gov...) shows that the monthly data are for the first day of each month. I maintain that although Obama was inaugurated on Jan 20, 2009, his first full month was February of 2009, when the unemployment rate was recorded at 8.3%. Con's arguments Con's first argument (i) was an actually an extended response to my main point, and has been addressed above. Con's second argument (ii) addressed the underemployment rate which was not included in the resolution. Con argues that the underemployed should be considered, "Since these people are unhappy with their employment this certainly contributes to the overall unemployment situation. The baseline unemployment rate doesn't include these people and therefore can be misleading." The argument that people who are not happy with their current employment should be considered in the unemployment rate is not justified. Con does not provide sufficient reason to include the underemployed in the resolution of this debate, and so I maintain that this argument should not be considered as relevant to the resolution. Con's third argument (round 2, Con, iii) argues that "nearly 4 million eligible people have dropped out of the labor force which then skews [my] unemployment figures". He shows figures of the "number of people eligible to be in the work force but choose not to be". I argued that since these people make an active decision to be unemployed, that they should not be included in the calculation of the unemployment rate, and thus this debate. Con was unsatisfied with this, so for the purpose of humoring Con, I will address the other problems with this argument. Con proposes a situation with a population of 100 people where 10 of those are unemployed. He continues to suppose that of the 10, 5 are those who choose not to seek employment because they have given up hope of obtaining a job. This is pure supposition on Con's part, that this situation is anything close to relevant. There are many reasons that one would not wish to seek employment, such as wishing to stay home to raise a child, those who are being financially supported by a spouse, those who are financially capable of retirement but are still eligible to be in the work force, and I'm sure many other situations. Furthermore, the country's population is continuously growing. Between 2009 and 2011, the population grew an estimated 5 million people [4][5]. Many of those in Con's figures could have been from this new population, skewing the data that Con claims is skewing the data we are both using to support our arguments (not just me). Another twist to this declining work force is the fact that those born in the post-WWII baby boom are now voluntarily retiring and leaving the work force while they are still eligible to work. [7] IMPAHR released a study in February 2007 which states "Baby boomers, generally defined as those individuals born between 1946 and 1964, will typically become eligible for retirement and begin to retire in higher numbers over the next few years." [8] So you see, this too will skew your supposed information you are using to support the fact that our numbers are skewed. Therefore, the reducing size of the work force is expected, and should not be considered in the resolution. Conclusion Con likes to tell me what my arguments are, even though I only have 1 main one, and he still has not sufficiently disproven even that one. According to him, my arguments are a) My information wasn't accurate or relevant This is more of a rebuttal to your arguments, and is not meant to serve as support of the resolution. Additionally, I never said your information wasn't accurate, only that you were misusing information in terms of incorrect months or overly simplistic representation of complex data. b) The percent change in unemployment under Bush is worse than under Obama This is not my argument. My argument is that the rate at which the unemployment rate is changing has gotten better than it was at the start of Obama's term. Bush was only mentioned to show the state of the unemployment situation when Obama was inaugurated. c) Trying to discredit my information pointing to trends and unemployment situation You have never discussed any trends of the unemployment situation. Thus far, you have only looked at two data points (however relevant they may or may not have been) and I maintain you cannot accurately represent a complex set of data without including the entirety of that data. My points have been clearly drawn, and I thank my opponent for a well thought out and stimulating debate, and the voters for their time. [4] http://geography.about.com... [5] http://www.census.gov... [6] http://en.wikipedia.org... [7] http://en.wikipedia.org... [8] http://unpan1.un.org...