The unemployment situation has gotten better since Obama took presidency.

Let me remind you that we are discussing the unemployment "situation" not merely the unemployment rate. The unemployment rate you are talking about is merely a part of the whole unemployment situation you mentioned in the resolution.Note: sources in the comments do not count unless specifically allowed in the First Round. I. Your Equation Firstly, your equation is a mere guess. I could come up with an extremely similar function and say "well you know it says here that tomorrow unemployment will be 25%". So we are going to look at some numbers, hard PAST data and skip making up numbers and pretending to predict the future because frankly the economy, especially now, is extremely fickle and unpredictable. II. Numbers We are going to examine a few numbers to determine the state of the full unemployment situation.i. Unemployment rate First, let's look at the actual state of the unemployment rate without any sort of equations but simply the numbers themselves.In January of 2009 when Obama first took office unemployment was at 7.80% [1][2] ... today unemployment is at 8.2%[1][2]. From right here just using unemployment figures without predicting the future we can say SINCE Obama took the presidency (Jan. '09 - present) the unemployment rate has gotten worse by .4% Unemployment ratesJanuary 2009 - 7.8%April 12, 2012 - 8.2%Percent change - .4% (+)The numbers are in your own table for goodness sake!That right there should win me the debate but I'm not going to stop there.ii. Underemployment rateThe underemployment rate includes people who are working part time but are looking for a full time job. 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. Underemployment rates2009 (September) - 16.8% [3]2012 (April, 9) - 18% [4] Percent change - 1.2% (+) As we can see, the number of people who are part time employed but are seeking full time jobs has risen by 1.2% since Obama took office. Again, since Obama took office we see an increase in unemployment AND underemployment. iii. People in the Labor ForceUnemployment only measures the percent of people looking for work out of the total number of workers in the labor force. The labor force is not a set number and people can choose to exit and enter the force whenever they choose simply by indicating that they are looking for a job at the time or not looking for a job. Number of people eligible to be in the work force but choose not to be2009 - 30,593,000 [5]2011 - 34,343,000 [5]Change - 3,750,000Since 2009 nearly 4 million eligible people have dropped out of the labor force which then skews your unemployment figures. For example:We have a labor force of 100 workers and the unemployment rate is 10% with 10 workers being out of workif 5 people leave the labor force because they've been unemployed for so long they've stopped looking for a job the numbers change as soLabor force: 100 -> 95Number unemployed: 10 -> 5Unemployment rate: 10% -> 5.3%As we can see there has been a significant drop in unemployment but in reality the unemployment rate truly hasn't changed because 10 people are still out of work. This goes to show how people leaving the labor force skews the perception of unemployment and how your numbers, your view of the unemployment rate and your equation are all flawed when discussing the unemployment situation. ConclusionIn conclusion, from the very basic figure of the unemployment rate (has risen .4% as of today from where it was when Obama took office) to the underemployment rate and the size of the work force we can see across the board that things are worse today than they were in January of 2009 when Obama took office.I have examined many parts of the unemployment situation from the time Obama took office in January 2009 until present day using hard facts taken from credible sources and have seen everything become worse. Unless you can prove, using past and present data (no future stuff) that the unemployment situation TODAY is better than it was in 2009 you have lost.Thank you. [1] http://ycharts.com...[2] http://www.google.com...[3] http://www.npr.org...[4] http://ycharts.com...[5] http://www.bls.gov...