Barack Obama

Barack Obama (born August 4, 1961, in Honolulu, Hawaii) is an American politician who served as the 44th president of the United States from 2009 to 2017. He was the first African American to hold the office and is widely noted for his historic 2008 election and subsequent reelection in 2012. ^[1][2]

Before becoming president, Obama represented Illinois in the U.S. Senate (2005–2008) and built a national profile through his 2004 Democratic National Convention keynote address and his 2008 presidential campaign. ^[1][2]

Obama’s early life includes growing up in Hawaii after being born to a Kenyan father and a mother from Kansas, and he later worked as a community organizer in Chicago before attending Harvard Law School. In 2009, he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for what the Nobel committee described as efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples. ^[1][3]

Context

Obama rose to national office during a period marked by the Great Recession, which the NBER dates from December 2007 to June 2009. ^[4] The unemployment rate rose sharply during this period and remained elevated into the early years of his presidency. ^[5] Public trust in the federal government had been historically low since 2007, according to long-running survey series summarized by Pew Research Center. ^[6] Public concern about major national problems also featured prominently in Gallup’s long-running “Most Important Problem” trend series. ^[7]