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A claim, attributed to Occupy Democrats (which may or may not be true), that is doing rounds in social networks shows a photo of the current US President Barack Obama raising a toast with these words:

In just six years...

“In just six years, I nearly tripled the stock market, cut unemployment in half, ended two wars, cut the uninsured rate in half, brought gas prices down to $2.75, and cut the annual Bush deficit by two-thirds.
Oh, and I got Bin Laden.
Or as Fox News says, I have failed as President. RIGHT.”

Do the numbers in reality match the figures in the claim about the current US President?

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  • 9
    That's 6 claims in one, preceeded by one you do not mention: Did Obama actually say this? The 6 are more a matter of 'attribution': Is saying that you caused this a notable claim?
    – user22865
    Feb 22, 2016 at 11:20
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    @JanDoggen: I don't think the graphic is intended literally as a claim that Obama said this. Just that (in their opinion) it's something he could say.
    – Steve Jessop
    Feb 22, 2016 at 12:43
  • When it says "In six years" I think it means 6 years, starting from his inauguration, going to the date of that toast, 6 years later. So it is not "the last six years" as in the title of the question.
    – GEdgar
    Feb 23, 2016 at 3:56
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    The facts are roughly true, though exaggerated a little. However, the demonstrably false claim is the "I": some (though not all) of what happened would have happened with another president in the white house.
    – PatrickT
    Feb 23, 2016 at 9:25
  • Gas prices are actually at $1.50 here now.
    – TylerH
    Feb 23, 2016 at 17:32

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Tripled the stock market

False.

There are different stock market indexes, but none of them "tripled" between 2010 and 2016. Also, while 2008 was a historical low, the overall growth trend has been steady since the 1930's -- so we can't really say his result was exceptional.

Stock trend
(source)

The Dow Jones index went from ~8,000 on January 20th, 2009 to about ~16,500 today, February 22nd, 2016, which is double and not triple.

Its maximum range is almost a triple: the Dow hit a minimum of 6,627 in March 2009 and a maximum of 18,273 in May 2015. This, though, is cherry picking.

Dow Jones

Cut unemployment in half

True, but the initial figure was clearly exceptional. As you can see it went from 10% to 5% after growing from 4.5% to 10% after the 2008 mass layoffs. Since many of these layoffs were skilled workers, it stands to reason that the figure would go down naturally as they find new jobs.

Unemployment rate
(source)

Ended two wars

True. The two wars intended here are the Iraq war and the war in Afghanistan. This is only true related to the United States involvement. Iraq was left in a state of civil war and Afghanistan is also unstable, and still sees the presence of US troops.

Cut the uninsured rate in half

False. The uninsured rate is lower than 2009 according to Gallup, but certainly not half.

Uninsured rate

(source)

Brought gas prices down to $2.75

False.

According to the EIA the current price is $1.834 per gallon, much lower than that. However it's not correct to say he "brought gas prices down", because the prices were very similar in 2009-2010, six years ago.

Gas prices

(source)

Cut the annual Bush deficit by two-thirds.

False.

While Bush did have a huge deficit on the last year of his presidency (more than $1.4 trillion) because of the banks bailouts, the rest of his tenure was between positive $0.1 trillion and negative $0.5 trillion, which is well in line with Obama's best result in 2015, around $0.45 trillion in the red.

US Deficit (data source)

Got Bin Laden

True.

On May 2, 2011, bin Laden was shot and killed inside a private residential compound in Abbottabad, where he lived with a local family from Waziristan, during a covert operation conducted by members of the United States Naval Special Warfare Development Group and Central Intelligence Agency SAD/SOG operators on the orders of U.S. President Barack Obama.

(source)

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    @DougMcClean in 2015 his deficit was 1/3rd of Bush's 2009 deficit, but we need to cherry pick these two specific years. We can equally say that in 2010 Obama's deficit was 10 times Bush's 2007 deficit...
    – Sklivvz
    Feb 22, 2016 at 14:35
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    The ended two wars part is also pretty questionable, since AFAIK the U.S. is still currently fighting in both Iraq (against ISIS) and Afghanistan. And this is ignoring starting another war (Libya) and trying to start another (vs. Assad in Syria.) I'd rate that claim as dubious at best.
    – reirab
    Feb 22, 2016 at 16:20
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    The quote is "nearly tripled the stock market," which is true. It went from 6600 to over 18000 from 2009 to 2015.
    – Bill the Lizard
    Feb 22, 2016 at 16:46
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    I suspect this is a two year old picture and the "just 6 years" refers to his 6 years after inauguration (Nov 2008-2014) rather than (2010-2016).
    – PVAL
    Feb 22, 2016 at 22:08
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    @Voo If we go by actual declarations of war by the U.S. Senate, no wars would be accurate. The U.S. Congress hasn't declared war since 1942. Also, if you go by actual U.S. declarations of war, WWII was 6 wars.
    – reirab
    Feb 22, 2016 at 23:28

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