what was the unemployment rate when george bush left office?
The seasonally adjusted unemployment rate rose from 4.3% in January 2001 to 6.3% in June 2003, then fell as the housing bubble inflated to a trough of 4.4% in March 2007. As the Great Recession deepened, the rate rose again to 6.1% in August 2008 and up to 7.2% in December 2008 at the end of the Bush administration.