Posted on 08/24/2012 9:26:39 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
Thirty-two years ago, Ronald Reagan asked voters a simple question that devastated Jimmy Carter's chances for a second term, and that presidential candidates have had to answer ever since: Are you better off now than you were four years ago? In 1980, voters overwhelmingly said no and gave Carter the heave-ho. When times are good, incumbents ask that question, and when times are bad, challengers ask it. It's a personal question, one that has a different answer for each voter.
Overall, though, the Washington Post reports that the answer isn't just no, but hell no. Household incomes have dropped 4.8% during the Obama recovery, and are now at a level below the recession:
Household income is down sharply since the recession ended three years ago, according to a report released Thursday, providing another sign of the stubborn weakness of the economic recovery.
From June 2009 to June 2012, inflation-adjusted median household income fell 4.8 percent, to $50,964, according to a report by Sentier Research, a firm headed by two former Census Bureau officials.
But — but — but — Obama inherited this decline, right?
Incomes have dropped more since the beginning of the recovery than they did during the recession itself, when they declined 2.6 percent, according to the report, which analyzed data from the Census Bureau’s Current Population Survey. The recession, the most severe since the Great Depression, lasted from December 2007 to June 2009.
Overall, median income is 7.2 percent below its December 2007 level and 8.1 percent below where it stood in January 2000, when it was $55,470, according to the report.
And while the decline differs by employment type, it turns out no one is better off than they were at the beginning of the recovery. However, one class managed to do less worse than the others:
Households led by the self-employed saw their income drop 9.4 percent, to $66,752, the report said. Households headed by private-sector employees saw wages drop by 4.5 percent, to $63,800, and households led by government workers saw median income decline by 3.5 percent, to $77,998, the report said.
Yes, you read that right. Government-worker households earn 17% more than the self-employed, and 22% more than private-sector workers. They also suffered less of a decline than those other classes of workers.
What did Barack Obama say at the beginning of summer?
The truth of the matter is that the Obama “recovery” feels like a recession because on a household-income basis, it is. And compared to the private sector, it’s the public-employee households that are “doing fine,” at least relatively speaking.
It is about fairness and getting even with whitey, and males, and Christians, and heterosexuals, and rich people (unless they be leftists), and employers, and all those other vile classes of people who've ever victimized the loudest self-proclaimed virtuous victims. < / sarcasm >
Yeah, and paying double for gas (including the cost of everything from that) isn’t helping.
Poorer and much less free’er.
Let's see now;
a. Wife lost her job and is now underemployed brings home half what she used to.
b. Son lost his job and now has to work as a temp just above minimum wage very little likely hood of finding a decent job (or any full time gig for that matter) in SE Wisconsin.
c. Daughter currently unemployed and little prospects.
d. Our church helped us keep our mortgage current when we needed the help.
Yes sir that hope and change sure has worked out well for me.
We went from a 95k a year household to just over 55k.
At least they have not come for my Veterans Disability (yet).
Quite interesting, followed that story all the way back to the original WP web page.
I’m shocked, but it really was WP business page content.
It might be do to the SC health care decision, drought, a slowing economy, people trying to reenter the work force because the MSM says every thing is great, or all of the previous.
It might be do to the SC health care decision, drought, a slowing economy, people trying to reenter the work force because the MSM says every thing is great, or all of the previous.
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