On the Economy: Obama Our Used Car Salesman

Americans harbor a negative stereotype of a used car salesmen as someone who will try to sell you a car by emphasizing the positives and hiding those ugly flaws that often turn your shiny new purchase into a lemon. That's what the President did on Thursday, when he began to hype his record on the economy.

While he can talk about all kinds of economic positives since taking office, there is really only one thing that my countrymen use to measure the economy: their paychecks.

And, this is where the Obama-economy falls far short.

In 2009, when the President took office, the median household income was $51,190.  In the latest report, the Census Bureau shows the median household income in 2013 was $51,900 or up just 1.3%.  That's an average increase of only $177 a year.  At the same time, the prices of many of the things we buy have gone through the roof.  Beef, for example, has gone up 56% since 2010.  In fact, most food prices, this year alone, are rising faster than both incomes and inflation.  Additionally, despite a wealth of low-cost natural gas, electricity rates are soaring because of the high cost of adding wind and solar.

This simple fact is why Obama, in poll after poll, gets horrible marks on his handling of the economy.  In a recent Pew poll, respondents only gave the President a 39% approval.  Worse than that was the recent Gallup poll where he only scored a 35% approval on the economy.

Obama appears to be on a fool's errand. He runs around the country, making speech after speech, telling Americans how great the economy is.  People aren't going to buy it because they clearly aren't feeling it.

References:

Obama Touts Economic Gains Under His Watch: http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/wireStory/obama-speak-economy-northwestern-25909807

Household Incomes 2009 and 2010: http://www.census.gov/prod/2011pubs/acsbr10-02.pdf

Five Years Of Recovery Haven’t Boosted The Median Household Income: http://fivethirtyeight.com/datalab/five-years-of-recovery-havent-boosted-the-median-household-income/

Beef prices hit record high: http://money.cnn.com/2014/04/14/news/economy/beef-prices/

As Food Prices Rise, Fed Keeps a Watchful Eye: http://online.wsj.com/articles/as-food-prices-rise-fed-keeps-a-wary-eye-1404672384

Electricity Price Index Soars to New Record at Start of 2014: http://cnsnews.com/news/article/terence-p-jeffrey/electricity-price-index-soars-new-record-start-2014-us-electricity


Summary of Polls: President Obama and the Obama Administration: http://www.pollingreport.com/obama_ad.htm

Overview of Latest Poverty Report

The Census Bureau just released its latest report on income and poverty in America and this is the  picture that it painted:

For the first time in 3 years, poverty has moved down from 15 percent of our population to 14.5%.  While this drop in the rate is positive, it still means that the number of Americans in poverty -- 45.3 million -- is at record levels when looking back 54 years to 1959.  It also means that -- compared to 2012's 48.8 million in poverty -- 3.5 million Americans were able to climb back out and stay there.

Then, there's median incomes:

Overall, incomes still haven't returned to pre-recession levels; despite it now being 5 years past the end of the recession.  While there was a small uptick in overall incomes, the buying power of the average American is still lagging and this is probably why the recovery has been so slow. Hurt the most since the recession, were Asians, with incomes falling from the mid-$70,000's to the current $67,065.  Additionally, Asians were the only racial component to continue to drop in incomes.  All other races saw some, but small, increases.


Finally, there's a part of this report that is seldom revealed because it doesn't fit the liberal view in America that the rich get richer while the poor get poorer.  In 2013, 30.9% of those who were in poverty from the period of 2007 to 2013 (just 5 years), elevated themselves out of poverty.  At the same time, 32.2% of those who were in the top 20% of incomes fell out of that top spot.  This is consistent with the fact that, in this country, most people rise out of poverty in just 10 years and, similarly, most rich lose much of their wealth in a similar amount of time.  This income mobility for the poor is a real form of positive income redistribution that rarely occurs in any other county.  At the same time, the fact that 32.2% of the richest drop in wealth in just five years definitely refutes the long-time progressive argument that the rich only get richer. 

References:

Income and Poverty in the United States: 2013: http://www.census.gov/content/dam/Census/library/publications/2014/demo/p60-249.pdf

Poverty: 2000 to 2012: http://www.census.gov/prod/2013pubs/acsbr12-01.pdf