Only a few weeks ago the White House press Secretary Josh Earnest pushed the Obama “strong” recovery. Strong recovery? If you’re a skeptic, join the crowd.
Compared with the average postwar recovery, the economy in the last six years has created 12.1 million FEWER JOBS and $6,175 LESS INCOME on average for every man, woman and child in this great country. At the present rate of growth in per capita GDP, it will take another 31 years for Obama’s recovery to match the per capita income growth already achieved at this point in previous postwar recoveries. Our economy has underperformed for the last six years in a row, growing at only 2.4%.
Employers added a flimsy 126,000 jobs in March and with downward revisions from previous months, the job gains were half that high. GDP growth in the 4th quarter of 2014 was 2.2%. The latest estimate for first quarter GDP is below 1%, with one Federal Reserve Bank predicting closer to zero.
The March job gains were way down from 18 months prior, when the economy had been averaging more than 200,000 a month. Wages crept up a bit (0.3%) but hours worked fell.
The labor force participation rate is sinking and remains at its lowest levels since the late 1970s. The meaningless government unemployment rate of 5.5% remains low only because of the historically low 62.7% labor force participation rate. 37.3% of working age Americans aren’t working and an additional 100,000 dropped out just in March. The all-inclusive unemployment rate, including those who have given up trying to find a job and those who can’t find full-time work, is closer to 11%.
Manufacturing is declining and consumers are not spending despite a huge cash infusion from cheap gas prices. The housing market remains relatively weak. Not only are middle class incomes not rising, the middle class is shrinking at a terrifying rate. The number of Americans on food stamps has risen by two-thirds and the number of people drawing disability insurance is up more than 20%.
We’ve borrowed and spent $7 trillion in the last six years. The Federal Reserve has printed and expanded its balance sheet by over $3 trillion while pursuing near zero interest rate policies.
Treasury data shows that the government has amassed $74 trillion in debts, liabilities and unfunded Social Security/Medicare obligations. This amounts to $603,000 for every household in the U.S., a fiscal burden that exceeds 90% of all the private wealth accumulated in the history of America.
The US has the highest corporate tax rate in the world and the most punitive treatment of foreign earnings. Marginal tax rates on ordinary income are up 24%. Tax rates on capital gains and dividends are up 59%. Banks are regulated as if they were public utilities. The rule of law is in tatters as tens of billions are extorted from large banks in legal settlements. Insurance companies and money managers are now subject to regulations set by international bodies.
Obama’s global warming scam has produced “green’ policies and regulations that have hamstringed the energy market, and distorted investment. ObamaCare gave the government total control over one-seventh of the economy.
Crony capitalism and artificially low interest rates have distorted the capital markets, misallocating capital, overpricing assets and underpricing debt.
Obamanomics is a grand failure. Fiscal stimulus, tax hikes on the rich, ObamaCare, cash for clunkers, minimum wage increases, housing bailouts, and bankrupted Big Green investments have not returned the economy to anything near the prosperity we saw in the 1980s or the 1990s.
