As I told you earlier, President Obama wove quite a tale last night to make the state of the union sound strong. But as with most of his tales, he only tells you the parts that make him sound good. When you see the real facts, you can only come to one conclusion: Obama's policies aren't working.
So with that in mind, here are the real facts that give the lie to the nonsense he peddled last night, and really has been peddling for the past five years:
Inequality has widened: The recovery has been good to families earning more than $394,000 a year, but the other 99 percent of Americans have barely felt it. The richest 1 percent of American families have captured 95 percent of the income gains in the recovery period spanning 2009 to 2012, according to economists at the forefront of income inequality research, Thomas Piketty and Emmanuel Saez. So yes, the super-rich are doing better than everyone else. Because of Obama.
The job market still faces a gaping hole: From the job market's peak in early 2008 to its bottom in 2010, the U.S. economy lost 8.7 million jobs – about half of which were in construction and manufacturing. To this day, the United States still hasn't gained back all those jobs. The economy needs about 1.2 million jobs to get back to the 2008 level, and once population growth is added to the mix, the hole looks more like an abyss.
The poverty rate remains high: About 46.5 million Americans are living in poverty – equivalent to 15% of the entire U.S. population. The poverty rate has barely budged during Obama's presidency, marking the first time it has remained at or above 15 percent for three consecutive years since 1965. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, a total of 6.7 million Americans have entered poverty since 2008.
A record number of Americans are on food stamps: Amid the recession, the food stamp rolls surged, and as of 2013, 48 million Americans were receiving the benefits – the highest number since the program began in 1969. A total of 19.4 million Americans have joined the food stamp program since Obama took office.
According to a January 2014 report by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, there are 7.8 million Americans working part-time that would like to work full-time.
The median income of American households dropped by $2,627 during President Obama's first term — and the number of people in poverty rose by about 6,667,000, according to a report from the U.S. Census Bureau.
In 2008, the year Obama was elected, real median household income in the United States was $53,644 according to the Census Bureau. In 2012, the last full year of Obama’s first term, median household income was $51,017. Thus, real median household income dropped $2,627—or 4.89 percent—from 2008 to 2012.
A recent report by the Kaiser Family Foundation found that family health care premiums have increased $3,671 under President Obama, despite his claim that ObamaCare would reduce premiums during his 2010 State of the Union address.
After five years of State of the Union promises to tackle the national debt, the current national debt has risen to more than $17.3 trillion. More than $6.6 trillion has been added to the national debt since President Obama took office. This is despite his declaration in the 2009 State of the Union address that he didn’t want to leave a “mountain of debt.”
Growth in the annual U.S. GDP, in chained 2009 dollars, has been the following under President Obama:
2009: Minus-2.8 percent
2010 : 2.5 percent
2011 : 1.8 percent
2012 : 2.8 percent
Those numbers are terrible.
Finally, the United States is no longer among the world's top 10 nations in terms of economic freedom, according to a newly published index. The world's largest economy slipped two notches into the 12th position in the 2014 Index of Economic Freedom spelled out by the Heritage Foundation and the Wall Street Journal, registering its seventh consecutive decline. When President Obama took office, the U.S. was ranked 6th. Now it is 12th.
