It sure is. But when Obama asked congress to continue the payroll tax cut (two years ago), they did. He didn't ask for it again. It was never meant to be anything but temporar and it was a targetted payroll tax cut specific to what the workers were paying towards Social Security, which is why the Republicans were against it. That temporary tax cut covered a lot of inflation in food, gas, and oil prices that were occuring at the time. So folks didn't really have more money money to spend on goodies that would expand the economy. They only had enough extra money to cover basic daily living costs. Now that the temp tax is gone, what they're really noticing is the effects of inflation that have been occuring the past couple of years.