I’m pretty sure UE was a little higher under Bush if you measure it the same way you do Obama’s. We’ve been measuring UE this way since the Johnson admin. So UE probably has always been higher than what we were officially told since the 60’s.
However, this economy is a stink hole compared to what we had under Bush. Unfortunately we were in the midst of a bubble back then but that’s another story. Bubble or no bubble it WAS growing well while we were being told it was the worst economy since Hoover.
Discouraged workers were removed from the headline number in the early 90’s as a way to keep that number low and help get people reelected. I believe under Clinton. Pretty sure actually but i don’t know when the revisions were initially undertaken. They may have started under Bush 1 and finalized later.