This usually volatile up-and-down index has more or less stagnated on the "Obama Plateau" at about 15%, and give the guy some credit for holding it steady, because there's a lot of momentum going in the wrong direction. For example...
The percentage of Americans living in extreme poverty slowly and more or less inexorably increased from 3.3% in 1976 to 6.6% in 2012.
So give President Obama some credit for holding it steady, but all in all it isn't exactly a cheerful prospect, and some evidence even suggests that millions of Americans may be running out of hope.
347,000 people gave up looking for work in December 2012, in one month, and that's a lot of hopelessness, no matter how you spin it.