Actually, the Washington Post is merely reporting on a new study that underscores just how miserable Barack Obama's "recovery" has been for middle class Americans. Headline: Household Income is Below Recession Levels, Report Says...
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. 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.
Re-read that bolded sentence. Incomes have dropped more since the beginning of Obama's recovery than they did during the recession he inherited. In short, Obama built that. (Paging Stephanie Cutter). Ed Morrissey catches another revealing stat buried in the third-to-last paragraph of the Post's story:
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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.
Scoreboard: Private sector workers, $64K; government sector workers, $78K. Over to you, buddy:
"The private sector is doing fine."
This president is clueless about how the economy works, and his policies are making things worse. Contrast Obama's resume with Mitt Romney's. The former CEO, Olympic Chairman and governor penned an op/ed in today's Wall Street Journal outlining his CV and reflecting on lessons learned:
The lessons I learned over my 15 years at Bain Capital were valuable in helping me turn around the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City. They also helped me as governor of Massachusetts to turn a budget deficit into a surplus and reduce our unemployment rate to 4.7%. The lessons from that time would help me as president to fix our economy, create jobs and get things done in Washington. A broad message emerges from my Bain Capital days: A good idea is not enough for a business to succeed. It requires a talented team, a good business plan and capital to execute it. That was true of companies we helped start, like Staples and the Bright Horizons child-care provider, and several of the struggling companies we helped turn around, like the Brookstone retailer and the contact-lens maker Wesley Jessen. My presidency would make it easier for entrepreneurs and small businesses to get the investment dollars they need to grow, by reducing and simplifying taxes; replacing Obamacare with real health-care reform that contains costs and improves care; and by stemming the flood of new regulations that are tying small businesses in knots
Romney leads Obama by nine points on the economy in the latest Gallup poll, as Obama remains seen as more "likable."
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