Gallup has found that unemployment ticked slightly up by the end of January, going up to 9.8 percent (up from 9.6 percent at the end of December 2010). That’s the highest Gallup has measured unemployment since the average last October was at 10 percent even.

The president’s approval rating is still at a net positive, according to Gallup, with his approval at 48 percent and his disapproval at 45 percent, numbers around which Obama has been hovering since December. But for the first time since 2005, the Republican party’s approval rating has eked out a net positive, according to a USA Today/Gallup poll conducted in January. That’s coming from an all-time low in late 2008: