THE OBAMA ECONOMY, IN ELEVEN CHARTS

JOHN HINDERAKER IN ECONOMY, OBAMA ADMINISTRATION,UNEMPLOYMENT

Today the Republicans on the Senate Budget Committee put out a chart book that documents the Obama administration’s failures in economic policy. From the introduction:

The great economic tragedy of our time is the erosion of the American middle class. Millions of Americans find themselves locked out of the American Dream. Their wages are either flat or falling, even as the price of energy and goods surges; the labor force is shrinking; and the government stimulus which was claimed to lift the economy to prosperity has instead sunk the nation into a chasm of debt.

This chart book highlights what working people know all too well: under President Obama, economic life today is much harder today than it was just a few years ago.

A day or two ago I saw a clip of a rather bewildered Wolf Blitzer asking Debbie Wasserman Schultz why President Obama doesn’t get more credit for the economy. Blitzer makes $3 million a year, so the economy probably looks pretty good to him. But the answer to his question is no mystery: for a large majority of Americans, the Obama economy has been a disaster.

Look what has happened to median family income. Click to enlarge:

One reason for the decline is that part-time jobs have substituted for full-time ones. When Obama talks about how many jobs have been created in recent years, remember: they’re largely part-time.

Apologists for the administration complain that the recovery has been hard going because the “great recession” was so deep. But that is a non sequitur. In the past, the rule has been, the deeper the recession the more dramatic the recovery. Many millions of Americans remember how our economy exploded under the pro-growth policies of the Reagan administration. That hasn’t happened since 2009 because the Obama administration is mostly interested in subsidizing inefficiency and reining in growth with regulations. And imagine where we would be if it weren’t for the natural gas revolution, which Obama opposed:

More at the link, all equally depressing.

http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2014/10/the-obama-economy-in-eleven-charts.php