Thursday, September 06, 2012

How much does Obama care about the middle class? Apparently, not enough

The speakers at the Democratic National Convention keep talking about the middle class, and how they care about the middle class. Unfortunately, they may be caring them out of existence.

What voters need to do is remember one number: $4,019. According to the Census Bureau, this is the amount  of the decline in income over Obama's term  of office. Here is the Wall Street Journal, on the result of Obama's "care" of the middle class:
In January 2009, the month President Obama entered the Oval Office and shortly before he signed his stimulus spending bill, median household income was $54,983. By June 2012, it had tumbled to $50,964, adjusted for inflation. (See the chart nearby.) That's $4,019 in lost real income, a little less than a month's income every year. 
How did this happen, what with all the Obama administration's care and concern? Maybe the problem is that they just didn't care enough--or maybe just expressing your concern and making speeches about it is not enough to actually change the situation.

But, you say, didn't Obama inherit the recession?
Well, even if you start the analysis when the recession ended in June 2009, the numbers are dismal. Three years after the economy hit its trough, median household income is down $2,544, or nearly 5%.
That's actually worse that the first part of the recession. You know, the one caused by Bush.
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1 comment:

  1. KyCobb8:15 AM

    But if the President did something to get corporations to pay higher wages out of the huge profits they have been earning, the Right would be screaming "socialism!" There is an excess of labor, so workers have little bargaining power which allows corporations to keep a lid on wages.

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