I was kinda hoping the list would reach 57. You know: One shocking fact for each state. Or for each spice that keeps our greyhound-faced Secretary of State flush with yacht money, even as the Middle East burns.
But beggars can’t be choosers, I guess:
Compared to when [Obama] first took office, a smaller percentage of the working age population is employed, the quality of our jobs has declined substantially and the middle class has been absolutely shredded. If we are really in the middle of an “economic recovery”, why is the homeownership rate the lowest that it has been in 18 years? Why has the number of Americans on food stamps increased by nearly 50 percent while Obama has been in the White House? Why has the national debt gotten more than 6 trillion dollars larger during the Obama era? Obama should not be “taking credit” for anything when it comes to the economy. In fact, he should be deeply apologizing to the American people.
And of course Obama is being delusional if he thinks that he is actually “running the economy”. The Federal Reserve has far more power over the U.S. economy and the U.S. financial system than he does. But the mainstream media loves to fixate on the presidency, so presidents always get far too much credit or far too much blame for economic conditions.
But if you do want to focus on “the change” that has taken place since Barack Obama entered the White House, there is no way in the world that you can claim that things have actually gotten better during that time frame. The cold, hard reality of the matter is that the U.S. economy has been steadily declining for over a decade, and this decline has continued while Obama has been living at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.
It is getting very tiring listening to Obama supporters try to claim that Obama has improved the economy. That is a false claim that is not even remotely close to reality. The following are 33 shocking facts which show how badly the U.S. economy has tanked since Obama became president…
#1 When Barack Obama entered the White House, 60.6 percent of working age Americans had a job. Today, only 58.7 percent of working age Americans have a job.
#2 Since Obama has been president, seven out of every eight jobs that have been “created” in the U.S. economy have been part-time jobs.
#3 The number of full-time workers in the United States is still nearly 6 million below the old record that was set back in 2007.
#4 It is hard to believe, but an astounding 53 percent of all American workers now make less than $30,000 a year.
#540 percent of all workers in the United States actually make less than what a full-time minimum wage worker made back in 1968.
#6 When the Obama era began, the average duration of unemployment in this country was 19.8 weeks. Today, it is 36.6 weeks.
#7 During the first four years of Obama, the number of Americans “not in the labor force” soared by an astounding 8,332,000. That far exceeds any previous four year total.
#8 According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the middle class is taking home a smaller share of the overall income pie than has ever been recorded before.
#9 When Obama was elected, the homeownership rate in the United States was 67.5 percent. Today, it is 65.0 percent. That is the lowest that it has been in 18 years.
#10 When Obama entered the White House, the mortgage delinquency rate was 7.85 percent. Today, it is 9.72 percent.
#11 In 2008, the U.S. trade deficit with China was 268 billion dollars. Last year, it was 315 billion dollars.
#12 When Obama first became president, 12.5 million Americans had manufacturing jobs. Today, only 11.9 million Americans have manufacturing jobs.
#13 Median household income in America has fallen for four consecutive years. Overall, it has declined by over $4000 during that time span.
#14 The poverty rate has shot up to 16.1 percent. That is actually higher than when the War on Poverty began in 1965.
#15 During Obama’s first term, the number of Americans on food stamps increased by an average of about 11,000 per day.
#16 When Barack Obama entered the White House, there were about 32 million Americans on food stamps. Today, there are more than 47 million Americans on food stamps.
#17 At this point, more than a million public school students in the United States are homeless. This is the first time that has ever happened in our history. That number has risen by 57 percent since the 2006-2007 school year.
#18 When Barack Obama took office, the average price of a gallon of regular gasoline was $1.85. Today, it is $3.53.
#19 Electricity bills in the United States have risen faster than the overall rate of inflation for five years in a row.
#20 Health insurance costs have risen by 29 percent since Barack Obama became president, and Obamacare is going to make things far worse.
#21 The United States has fallen in the global economic competitiveness rankings compiled by the World Economic Forum for four years in a row.
#22 According to economist Tim Kane, the following is how the number of startup jobs per 1000 Americans breaks down by presidential administration…
Bush Sr.: 11.3
Clinton: 11.2
Bush Jr.: 10.8
Obama: 7.8
#23 In 2008, that total amount of student loan debt in this country was 440 billion dollars. At this point, it has shot up to about a trillion dollars.
#24 According to one recent survey, 76 percent of all Americans are living paycheck to paycheck.
#25 During Obama’s first term, the number of Americans collecting federal disability insurance rose by more than 18 percent.
#26 The total amount of money that the federal government gives directly to the American people has grown by 32 percent since Barack Obama became president.
#27 According to the Survey of Income and Program Participation conducted by the U.S. Census, well over 100 million Americans are enrolled in at least one welfare program run by the federal government.
#28 As I wrote about the other day, American households are now receiving more money directly from the federal government than they are paying to the government in taxes.
#29 Under Barack Obama, the velocity of money (a very important indicator of economic health) has plunged to a post-World War II low.
#30 At the end of 2008, the Federal Reserve held $475.9 billion worth of U.S. Treasury bonds. Today, Fed holdings of U.S. Treasury bonds have skyrocketed past the 2 trillion dollar mark.
#31 When Barack Obama was first elected, the U.S. debt to GDP ratio was under 70 percent. Today, it is up to 101 percent.
#32 During Obama’s first term, the federal government accumulated more new debt than it did under the first 42 U.S presidents combined.
#33 When you break it down, the amount of new debt accumulated by the U.S. government during Obama’s first term comes to approximately $50,521 for every single household in the United States. Are you able to pay your share?
Obama likes to run around the country talking about the recovery. In fact, he says it so often that you even hear more “fair-minded” or “objective” center-rightists and conservatives acknowledge the modest recovery, or admitting that things are “getting a bit better.”
This is nonsense, and it goes to one of the points geoff B made in a post last week with respect to “our” acceptance, often unwittingly, of leftwing agitprop.
Minorities, the blue collar class, new workers fresh from high school or college, and middle class Americans are all suffering dramatically under this President.
And yet, these are his bread and butter voters.
Somebody really ought to wake them up before they roll out of bed one day to find themselves in government assisted housing, jobless, wearing nothing but their “YES WE CAN!” tattered hope and change t-shirts.
Because what Obama meant by “YES WE CAN” and what they all thought he meant were two entirely different things.
Face it: you been had. Gotten. Hoodwinked. Bamboozled. You didn’t land on Plymouth rock. Plymouth rock landed on you.
Dust yourself off now and show some goddamn self respect. It’s time to take back the playing field.
(h/t Mark Levin)
How…..unexpected.
Fun cool yolo.
It’s racist to point these things out, you know.
Why are these facts considered shocking? They are a natural conseuqence of ZIRP, trillion dollar deficits each year, the ever expanding regulatory enivornment, and progressive policies across the board.
Why are these facts considered shocking?
They’re only shocking to the 99% who depend on mainstream media for their daily dose of edutainment. One must bear in mind that most people think ZIRP is one of the races in StarCraft…
Gene Sperling just slid his resignation letter under the door today. Getting out while the gettin’ is good, I’d say.
I can’t read TMQ on ESPN’s website anymore. Today, in his football column, he was arguing that the government’s spending 6-7% less (his own, pulled out of his ass number) than 3 years ago represents some great fiscal discipline triumph.
What he failed to mention were: Spending as a percent of GDP is still at unsustainable levels, deficits are still near $1 TRILLION annually, we’re still spending 17% more than when O came into office with no corresponding increase in tax revenue, etc.
I know he’s a smart and generally interesting writer, but when complaining about stories putting out incomplete facts, he ought to, you know, put out complete facts…
Okay, okay. Let’s grant you all of that. But c’mon… It’s all worth to have a half-black man in the White House.
Well, to be fair, if he were half-black and conservative, it would be the world’s greatest tragedy. No matter what shape the economy is in.
That’s the genius of the American decline, John. Educated people think they have all the facts, when they don’t even realize some of their basic assumptions are bad. Or, at the very least, of a very specific mindset. So while society and our nation are obviously declining, those that pride themselves on being able to connect the dots can’t see it.
My wife and I have a decent combined income. Over the last three years, we’ve paid off a car, added my wife to my insurance, dropping her insurance, which she partially paid for, and reduced the amount I spend on gasoline from roughly $90 week to $30 a week. We also got rid of a vehicle and the insurance that went with it.
Financially, we pretty much broke even.
I think that really says it all, Blake.
Welcome to the Ruling Class Recovery.
http://www.cnbc.com/id/100987924#_gus
This part astounded me, but it makes sense in light of the mushrooming student loan debt:
“An even better way to create an illusory expansion is to simply not measure trends that would reveal a deepening recession. For example, what percentage of student loans are purposefully taken out as a substitute for income, i.e. used to pay basic living expenses rather than education? Anecdotally, there is plentiful evidence that a great many people are signing up for one class at the local community college in order to get a student loan to live on.”
That’s been going on for quite some time, Dale. I knew of kids who had bought cars with their loan money a few years ago when I was teaching at the community college.
I hadn’t heard much about the one-class community college loan, but I know lots of undergrads who are piling on debt for grad school because they can’t/won’t get real jobs in this economy. (Most of my acquaintances who sign on for three credits at the community college do it because they figure they can recoup the investment by taking advantage of student discounts around town…)
Wow. I had no idea. I can’t even put my surprise into words.
A number of people I knew in grad school really dug a grave for themselves with student loan debt. If you can borrow $60,000 a year? Hey, what the hell! You’ll get a really good paying job later. Right? Right?
As one of those who thought he was going to get a good-paying job when he left grad school, let me just say, feh!
Don’t do it, kids! Some advanced degrees price you right out of the market.
Debt? I have a truckload of it.
Same here. I’ll die with it, too.
The 4 years my wife was going through med school (while mine was the sole income), we made it a point to only get loans for the tuition – everything else, all other expenses came out of our pocket. She had many fellow students who got living expenses to go along with their tuition. So upon graduation, we had $120K in debt while many of her friends walked away owing $200K – $300K. Which they will be paying back for decades (we are already well on the way to having it paid off). It’s like having a mortgage for a house that you can’t live in.
http://www.mlive.com/news/index.ssf/2013/08/point_it_out_knock_it_out_brut.html#incart_m-rpt-2
“The game was called “point ’em out, knock ’em out,” and it was as random as it was brutal.
The object: Target an innocent victim for no other reason than they are there, then sucker punch him or her.
But on this day in Lansing, there would be no punch. The teen-age attacker had a stun gun. He did not know his would-be victim was carrying a legally concealed pistol.
The teen lost the game.”
Dave, the wife of one of my lawyer pals calls his law school debt the “Second Mortgage”. You aren’t alone, that’s for sure.
*Dave, the wife of one of my lawyer pals calls his law school debt the “Second Mortgage”*
Same here. I sometimes imagine my life without law school debt and how much better things would be, even if I was in a different profession. I get a surprising number of kids ask me about what I think about them going to law school – I tell them don’t do it unless 1. you have a full scholarship or 2. you have rich parents who are going to pick up the tab.
Matt, I often think how much better off I’d be financially if I’d just gone to beauty college. No one would call me Doctor, but I could live with that and have something to leave to the kids.