Barack Obama
National outcomes compiled July 26, 2026. Each number below is dated where it stands.
President of the United States · Democratic. What follows is context, not a grade — the national numbers during Obama’s time in office, shown next to the median across OECD member states.
Why no overall grade?
We built a presidential grade and tested it. The only honest benchmark for a whole country — its own prior trajectory — turned out to be dominated by crisis timing: whoever inherits a bad year looks good, whoever inherits a good trend looks bad, regardless of what they did. A single ranking would measure luck, not governance, and read as partisan. So we publish the data and refuse to fake a number.
Presidency · 2009–2017
Federal spending during Obama’s term
Total U.S. federal outlays for each fiscal year of Obama’s term. This is the whole federal budget — mostly Social Security, Medicare, defense, interest on the debt, and prior commitments — not money Obama personally directed. A president proposes and Congress appropriates; no single official controls it.
Nominal dollars — not adjusted for inflation. Bar lengths compare dollars of different years, so a longer bar can be higher prices rather than more spending. Do not read these bars as a real trend.
Source: OMB Historical Tables, Table 1.1 (Summary of Receipts, Outlays, and Surpluses or Deficits: 1789-present) · figures · compiled July 26, 2026. Fiscal years run Oct–Sep, so a term’s first and last fiscal year each overlap the neighbouring president’s term — marked above with the share that fell inside this term.
How the country did — term of 2009–2017
How each U.S. national outcome moved during the term, with the median across OECD member states alongside for context. This is not a grade: a president shares credit with Congress, the Fed, the states and the world, and outcomes lag policy by years. It’s what happened, not a scorecard. Every outcome here runs the full term, 2009–2017.
| Outcome | Start | End | Direction | Peer median |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Unemployment rate % | 9.3 ’09 | 4.4 ’17 | improved | 8.02 → 5.82 ’09–’17World Bank · modelled estimate · 38 countries |
| Total tax burden % of GDP | 22.9 ’09 | 26.5 ’17 | → | 31.1 → 33.7 ’09–’17OECD · 38 countries |
| Uninsured, adults 18–64 % | 21.2 ’09 | 12.8 ’17 | improved | 0 → 0 ’09–’17OECD · 33–38 countriesflat at 0 in every year 2000–2024different basis — this source puts the U.S. at 9.2 in 2017, not 12.8 |
| Adult obesity % | 27.8 ’09 | 31 ’17 | worsened | 16.7 → 16.6 ’14–’17OECD · 22–25 countries |
| Teen birth rate per 1,000 | 37.9 ’09 | 18.8 ’17 | improved | 13.98 → 8.12 ’09–’17World Bank · modelled estimate · 38 countries |
| Food insecurity % of households | 14.7 ’09 | 11.8 ’17 | improved | 8.9 → 6.8 ’15–’17FAO · 35 countriesdifferent basis — this source puts the U.S. at 8.9 in 2017, not 11.8 |
| Homicide rate per 100,000 | 5.5 ’09 | 6.2 ’17 | worsened | 1.1 → 0.8 ’09–’17OECD · 37–38 countriesdifferent basis — this source puts the U.S. at 5.8 in 2017, not 6.2 |
| Firearm death rate per 100,000 | 10.1 ’09 | 12 ’17 | worsened | — |
| 8th-grade math (NAEP) scale scorepublished every 2–3 years | 281.7 ’09 | 282 ’17 | no changeboth ends print as 282 at the source’s own precision | — |
U.S. series: BLS, CDC WONDER, CDC/NCHS, NCES/NAEP, OECD, USDA ERS. Peer medians: FAO, OECD, World Bank — the median value across OECD member states, not any one country’s value, over the country count shown on each row (membership and reporting both change year to year). “Direction” marks whether the number moved the better way for that single metric; it is never summed into an overall score. “→” marks a context metric with no better direction — total tax burden is reported, not judged. “No change” means both endpoints round to the same figure the source itself publishes, so no move can be claimed. The peer column carries its own years because several of those series begin later than the U.S. one. The two food-security measures are not like for like — the U.S. figure is USDA household food insecurity, the peer figure is an FAO population measure that FAO publishes only as three-year moving averages, dated here by the middle year of each window.
The Rundown
4 of the 7 outcomes with a better direction improved between 2009 and 2017, 3 worsened. Not a grade.
Unemployment rate. 9.3 → 4.4% between 2009 and 2017 — fell.
Firearm death rate. 10.1 → 12.0 per 100,000 between 2009 and 2017 — rose.
Where the window starts and stops. Terms change hands on Jan. 20, but these are calendar-year figures, so 2017 is a year Obama governed about three weeks of — and it is also the next president's starting line. The same number closes this record and opens theirs.
Against other countries — 3 comparable outcomes. The U.S. sits ahead of the peer median on 1 of 3: unemployment rate (4.4% against a 5.82% median across 38 countries, 2017). That is a standing at the end of the term, not a move during it. The other 6 outcomes are not counted — a different definition abroad, no peer figure at the endpoint year, or no better direction to compare.
Tracked but not judged — 2 of 9. Total tax burden (reported, not judged: there is no better direction for a tax level); 8th-grade math (NAEP) (the move is smaller than the scale's published precision). Counted in neither column above.
Why there is no grade: we built one, ran it, and it turned out to measure crisis timing rather than governance — whoever inherits a bad year looks good. And why there is no "if Obama were a governor" rank: for most of these outcomes the national number and the state numbers are the same measurement at two levels of aggregation, so the national figure tends to land inside the pack rather than at either end. We ran it anyway, and it could not separate the completed presidencies from one another — which makes it a description of arithmetic, not of a record. A president shares these outcomes with Congress, the Fed, the states and the world economy.