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Economy’s Good News is Finally Genuine

The New York Analysis of Policy and Government examines  the U.S. employment recovery, in this two-part review.

The good news about the U.S. economy is, finally, genuine.

During the eight years of the Obama Administration, a supportive media attempted to portray the economy, particularly the job market, as recovering. It was a difficult task.

Obama supporters in the media and elsewhere headlined falling unemployment statistics, but the statistics were deeply misleading. They were attributable to a labor force participation rate which dropped to a decades-low figure (it has yet to recover) and the large number of those who could only find part time employment, to replace the full time jobs they had lost.  The number of discouraged workers, who had exhausted unemployment benefits, rose.

An analysis by Bloomberg outlined the dilemma: the minimal amount of jobs that were being created were in traditionally lower-paying fields, furthering a transfer of employment from middle income to lower income. Payrolls at factories, in particular, were hard-hit. The replacement of middle class jobs with lower paying ones was a key challenge.  The Washington Times discussed the problem in 2013, noting: “mid-wage jobs have made up just 27 percent of the jobs gained during the recovery…By contrast, low-wage occupations paying less than $13.83 per hour have utterly dominated the recovery, with 58 percent of the job gains since 2010.” A significant part of the blame could be directly attributed to factors such as:

  •  Obamacare, which created a financial incentive to eliminate full time positions;
  • Environmental regulations, which impacted manufacturing and mining;
  • Excess federal regulations and high taxes, which drove employers out of the nation.
  • General uncertainty about the direction of a national economy led by a White House that clearly disdained traditional capitalist practices.

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A 2015 Analysis by Investors.com   described the problem: “After six-plus years of President Obama’s big-spending, tax-raising policies, middle-class families have seen their incomes decline and more families have fallen into poverty, Census data show… Median family income dropped slightly to $53,657, down from the year before. Every income group suffered losses, with the lowest fifth of households dropping close to 1%. The overall poverty number barely budged. But it climbed by almost 600,000 among blacks in 2014, more than half of whom were under age 18. From 2009 to 2014, real median household income dropped by more than $1,000 — or 2.3% — to $53,657. (And that decline would likely have been steeper if not for a 2013 change in the way the Census does its annual survey.)

The replacement of middle class jobs with lower paying ones had been noted during Obama’s tenure.  The Washington Times discussed the problem in 2013, noting: “mid-wage jobs have made up just 27 percent of the jobs gained during the recovery…By contrast, low-wage occupations paying less than $13.83 per hour have utterly dominated the recovery, with 58 percent of the job gains since 2010.

During the prior presidency, a CNS  report emphasized that “for ordinary people, what probably matters most is household income. And if you look at the median household income numbers for the United States, Obamanomics is a failure. According to the Census Bureau’s latest numbers, the average family today has less income (after adjusting for inflation) than when Obama took office.

The American Enterprise Institute studied the problem in its report, “The Obama Economy and the Shrinking Middle Class.”  It noted how the poverty rate has increased: “the number of Americans living in poverty has increased by nearly 7 million during the Obama presidency, and the poverty rate went from 13.2 in 2009 percent to 14.8 percent last year. Further, the number of blacks living in poverty increased by nearly 1.4 million during Obama’s time in office, and the black poverty rate was higher in 2011 at 27.6% than any time since the mid-1990s before falling slightly to 26.2% in 2014. More data: the number of Americans on disability reached a record high during Obama’s second term, with an increase of 1.5 million disabled since Obama took office. There’s also be an increase in income inequality during Obama’s time in office, so there doesn’t seem to be a lot of empirical evidence to suggest that America’s middle and working class have seen an improvement in their economic well-being during Obama’s leadership.”

Currently, The Bureau of Labor Statistics report reveals substantive progress in several areas, and substantial progress in others. It notes that the number of those forced to work only part time has fallen by 858,000 over the past year. It also found that there was a drop of 451,000 in those only marginally attached to the labor force. The number of “discouraged workers” has fallen by 122,000.

The Report Concludes Tomorrow