Employment data may be key to president's job

No American president since Franklin Delano Roosevelt has won a second term in office when the unemployment rate on Election Day topped 7.2 percent.

Seventeen months before the next election, it is increasingly clear that President Obama must defy that trend to keep his job.

But the grim reality of widespread unemployment is drawing little response from Washington. The Federal Reserve says it is all but tapped out. There is even less reason to expect Congressional action. Both Democrats and Republicans see clear steps to create jobs, but they are trying to walk in opposite directions and are making little progress.

How the economy could break Obama

Is President Obama moving closer to a one-term presidency with every disappointing economic datapoint, unemployment report and stock market stumble?

Democrats of course hope that isn't the case, but political scientists say that in almost every election, the economy does indeed turn out to be issue No. 1.

Right now, that's just flat out bad news for Obama.

With Republicans firmly in control of the House, legislative avenues for passing another stimulus package are blocked. If the U.S. wasn't already struggling under massive debt, tax cuts might have been option but are now a political impossibility.

That leaves the administration with limited options for lowering the unemployment rate, possibly the most visible example of the economy's health for voters.