A promise or a projection on unemployment?

With unemployment rates continuing to rise nearly five months after the economic stimulus plan was passed, House Republican Whip Eric Cantor said the Obama-backed plan is a bust.

“Clearly the stimulus or so-called stimulus plan that spent almost $800 billion dollars has not worked,” Cantor said in a PBS interview on July 8, 2009. “We were promised, the president said we would keep unemployment under 8.5 percent. We’re now over 9.5 percent, on our way to 10 percent.”

The claim that the Obama administration “promised” the stimulus would keep the unemployment rate below 8 percent is a popular talking point among Republican critics of the stimulus.

We’ve heard it from House Republican Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio, Reps. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., and Lynn Westmoreland, R-Ga., as well as conservative talk show host Sean Hannity, to name a few. They all called it a “promise.”

We checked the record and found it wasn’t exactly a promise. We rated the claim

Barely True

.