FOD 2014.09.15

Lost in all the ISIS-related news stories has been some disturbing news on the domestic front related to our economy.

Obama’s Spin Can’t Keep Up With America’s Economic Reality

At a Labor Day rally in Milwaukee, President Obama turned the limelight on himself, approvingly and inaccurately.

“By almost every measure,” he declared, “the American economy and the American workers are better off than when I took office.”

In contrast to Mr. Obama’s self-congratulatory assertion, the Census Bureau reports that median household income in the United States, adjusted for inflation, is down by more than $2,000 since Obama’s first inauguration in January 2009.

Additionally, as an indicator of the economic downturn, a sixth of the U.S. population is currently receiving food stamps, an increase in the participation rate in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program of 61 percent since 2008.

There are several reasons for this dismal performance, but The Federal Reserve has pinpointed one underlying cause - obamacare.

Specifically related to the cause of the economy’s poor levels of job creation and household income growth, an August 25 report in Forbes by economist John Goodman documented via Federal Reserve surveys that Obamacare is a key reason for the nation’s persevering joblessness and declining levels of inflation-adjusted household income ... “The new health law is discouraging a significant number of firms from hiring and is also pushing workers into part-time rather than full-time jobs.”

Bottom line? After more than five years of Obama’s economy — the ill-designed “growth” programs that drained job-creating money out of the private sector, the “shovel ready” boondoggles that weren’t ready, the bailouts for political cronies that transferred capital from the productive to the non-productive, the boom in welfare spending that weakened incentives for productivity at both the top and bottom, and hundreds of billions in “stimulus” spending that ended up to be more about spending than stimulating — all the ill-fitting pieces came together to produce a record-breaking $7 trillion in additional federal debt and a public that’s increasingly opposed to President Obama’s prescription for economic recovery.

In an ironic twist, the people hurt the most by tough economic times are that same ones who put barry in office.

The demographic groups that voted most heavily for Barack Obama in 2012 have suffered the most from this president’s economic policies...

... let’s look at who the Obama voters were in 2012 — and the numbers weren’t a whole lot different in the “hope and change” election of 2008. The demographic groups that were crucial to his victory were: young voters 60 percent (for Mr. Obama), single women 67 percent, Hispanics 71 percent and blacks more than 90 percent.

Here’s how these groups have fared economically since Mr. Obama became president ...  single women with and without children present saw their incomes fall by roughly 5 percent. Those age 25-34 experienced an income decline of 4.4 percent. Black heads of households saw their income tumble by 7.7 percent, while the income of Hispanic heads of households fell 5.6 percent. In other words, many of these groups experienced double the income fall than the average voter.

In dollar terms, between the time the Obama recovery began in June 2009 and June of this year, median black household income fell by nearly $3,000, Hispanic households lost nearly $2,500, and female-headed households lost roughly $1,500.

The jobless numbers show pretty much the same pattern. July’s Bureau of Labor Statistics data (the most recent available) show a national unemployment rate of 6.2 percent. The highest jobless rates by far are for key components of the Obama voter bloc: blacks (11.4 percent), Hispanics (7.8 percent), those with less than a high-school diploma (9.6 percent). For teens, it’s 20.2 percent.

In the 1980s and 1990s, it was blacks and women who had the largest percentage income gains. Now that progress in reducing racial and gender income gaps has reversed course under Mr. Obama. The income gains under Mr. Obama have been concentrated in those in the top 20 percent of income. (emphasis added)

So much for income inequality.

One reason incomes haven’t risen for most groups is the steady decline in labor-force participation. That number has dropped to 62.9 percent from 65.5 percent five years ago. This means a 6.4 million drop in workers earning paychecks.

barry has the reverse Midas touch. Everything he touches turns to crap...