Out of the Past - 27 Facts That Prove Just How Badly Barack Obama's Presidency Has Devastated the Middle Class
January 19, 2015
During his State of the Union speech on Tuesday evening, Barack Obama is going to promise to make life better for middle class families. Of course he has also promised to do this during all of his other State of the Union addresses, but apparently he still believes that there are people out there that are buying what he is selling. Each January, he gets up there and tells us how the economy is “turning around” and to believe that much brighter days are right around the corner. And yet things just continue to get even worse for the middle class. The numbers that you are about to see will not be included in Obama’s State of the Union speech. They don’t fit the “narrative” that Obama is trying to sell to the American people. But all of these statistics are accurate. They paint a picture of a middle class that is dying. Yes, the decline of the U.S. middle class is a phenomenon that has been playing out for decades. But without a doubt, our troubles have accelerated during the Obama years. When it comes to economics, he is completely and utterly clueless, and the policies that he has implemented are eating away at the foundations of our economy like a cancer. The following are 27 facts that show how the middle class has fared under 6 years of Barack Obama…
#1 American families in the middle 20 percent of the income scale now earn less money than they did on the day when Barack Obama first entered the White House.
#2 American families in the middle 20 percent of the income scale have a lower net worth than they did on the day when Barack Obama first entered the White House.
#3 According to a Washington Post article published just a few days ago , more than 50 percent of the children in U.S. public schools now come from low income homes. This is the first time that this has happened in at least 50 years.
#4 According to a Census Bureau report that was recently released, 65 percent of all children in the United States are living in a home that receives some form of aid from the federal government.
#5 In 2008, the total number of business closures exceeded the total number of businesses being created for the first time ever, and that has continued to happen every single year since then.
#6 In 2008, 53 percent of all Americans considered themselves to be “middle class”. But by 2014, only 44 percent of all Americans still considered themselves to be “middle class”.
#7 In 2008, 25 percent of all Americans in the 18 to 29-year-old age bracket considered themselves to be “lower class”. But in 2014, an astounding 49 percent of all Americans in that age range considered themselves to be “lower class”.
#8 Traditionally, owning a home has been one of the key indicators that you belong to the middle class. So what does the fact that the rate of homeownership in America has been falling for seven years in a row say about the Obama years?
#9 According to a survey that was conducted last year, 52 percent of all Americans cannot even afford the house that they are living in right now.
#10 After accounting for inflation, median household income in the United States is 8 percent lower than it was when the last recession started in 2007.
#11 According to one recent survey, 62 percent of all Americans are currently living paycheck to paycheck.
#12 At this point, one out of every three adults in the United States has an unpaid debt that is “ in collections “.
#13 When Barack Obama first set foot in the Oval Office, 60.6 percent of all working age Americans had a job. Today, that number is sitting at only 59.2 percent…
#14 While Barack Obama has been in the White House, the average duration of unemployment in the United States has risen from 19.8 weeks to 32.8 weeks .
#15 It is hard to believe, but an astounding 53 percent of all American workers make less than $30,000 a year.
#16 At the end of Barack Obama’s first year in office, our yearly trade deficit with China was 226 billion dollars . Last year, it was more than 314 billion dollars .
#17 When Barack Obama was first elected, the U.S. debt to GDP ratio was under 70 percent . Today, it is over 101 percent .
#18 The U.S. national debt is on pace to approximately double during the eight years of the Obama administration. In other words, under Barack Obama the U.S. government will accumulate about as much debt as it did under all of the other presidents in U.S. history combined.
#19 According to the New York Times, the “typical American household” is now worth 36 percent less than it was worth a decade ago.
#20 The poverty rate in the United States has been at 15 percent or above for 3 consecutive years . This is the first time that has happened since 1965.
#21 From 2009 through 2013, the U.S. government spent a whopping 3.7 trillion dollars on welfare programs.
#22 While Barack Obama has been in the White House, the number of Americans on food stamps has gone from 32 million to 46 million .
#23 Ten years ago, the number of women in the U.S. that had full-time jobs outnumbered the number of women in the U.S. on food stamps by more than a 2 to 1 margin. But now the number of women in the U.S. on food stamps actually exceeds the number of women that have full-time jobs.
#24 One recent survey discovered that about 22 percent of all Americans have had to turn to a church food panty for assistance.
#25 An astounding 45 percent of all African-American children in the United States live in areas of “concentrated poverty”.
#26 40.9 percent of all children in the United States that are living with only one parent are living in poverty.
#27 According to a report that was released late last year by the National Center on Family Homelessness, the number of homeless children in the United States has reached a new all-time record high of 2.5 million .
Unfortunately, this is just the beginning.
The incredibly foolish decisions that have been made by Obama, Congress and the Federal Reserve have brought us right to the precipice of another major financial crisis and another crippling economic downturn.
So as bad as the numbers that I just shared with you above are, the truth is that they are nothing compared to what is coming.
We are heading into the greatest economic crisis that any of us have ever seen, and it is going to shock the world.
I hope that you are getting ready.
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While I may have problems with some of the statistics linked to here, overall, ALL of them together paint a damning picture of the effects of Obama's policies. This does not mean what Trmp is doing is better, wiser or justifiable, it just means that the Obama regime was no panacea for the blacks, middle class or women.
No it wasn't. However compared to what it was for all Americans when he took over it was heaven. And improving. That will soon be changing and not for the better.
The election is over. The Dems are politically irrelevant. Their problems are irrelevant.
What are your / Republican / conservative plans for governing the country?
The plan is to destroy socialism and replace with individual responsibility and capitalism. As we see with the meals for wheels issue there is going to be a lot of crying as the socialists are pulled away from the governments tit and taught to stand on their own two feet.
Their problems are still relevant as seen with Obamacare they do not go away on their own. Cleaning up the mess they created is going to take some time.
The plan is to destroy socialism...
That's your plan, Dean? Wow.....
8 lost years
Ok, Sean... Let's go with the idea that there's a big mess to be cleaned up.
How do you want to start? Specifically, I mean. If the Obama years were so bad, you must have a long list of very precise propositions for cleaning the mess up.
What do you plan to do?
The incredibly foolish decisions that have been made by Obama, Congress and the Federal Reserve have brought us right to the precipice of another major financial crisis and another crippling economic downturn.
So as bad as the numbers that I just shared with you above are, the truth is that they are nothing compared to what is coming.
We are heading into the greatest economic crisis that any of us have ever seen, and it is going to shock the world.
Yeah … how'd all that play out?
Dow Doubles to 16,000 Under Obama Socialism
Won't be long before that bubble bursts.
Won't be long before that bubble bursts.
Can't have it both ways, Dean …
IT'S TRUMP'S BUBBLE NOW!
So you admit Obama left Trump with a bubble.
So you admit Obama left Trump with a bubble.
No … Obama left a recovered economy, back from the brink of disaster … a Trump/Russia/Health Insurance disaster is the "prick" to burst WHAT YOU CALLED A "BUBBLE" …
Next time you use an inaccurate term, before I respond, I'll correct you and wait until you say that you "stand corrected".
Because the Trump Campaign/Administration is under investigation and some of its people may end up under criminal indictment … including a high crime of colluding with a foreign power to influence a POTUS election, today, that possibility and the fear thereof, the DOW closed down almost 240 points.
I'm hoping it's just profit taking after a nice run up and a buying opportunity; but the "bubble-run up" created by Trump's talk of deregulation (before it does what it did in 2008), and that, coupled with possible impeachment, dismissal, indictments, fearful campaign and White House folks who may plea bargain to save their asses … could destroy the Obama market and job recoveries and create turmoil and disgrace.
And please, folks, spare us the quips, bullshit and equivocation and just address the several particular issues in my comment.*
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* Ain't gonna happen … but, I nevertheless hold out hope.
The Republican Obstructionism Fucked the American Economy …
The Republican political strategy has been to obstruct efforts to help the economy for everyone but the wealthiest few, and then campaign on complaints that the economy isn’t helping anyone but the wealthiest few. It’s working.
In President Obama’s July 12 weekly address he said, “So far this year, Republicans in Congress have blocked every serious idea to strengthen the middle class.” He could have said, “Since 2009.” Since the 2009 “stimulus,” Republicans have obstructed pretty much every effort to help the economy. In the Senate they have filibustered hundreds of bills, and since the “stimulus” they have managed to keep anything from passing that might help the economy.
In the House, Republicans have refused to allow votes on anything that seriously would help the economy, instead passing only tax cuts for the wealthy and corporations, spending cuts on essential things like maintaining our infrastructure and scientific research, and cutting regulations that protect people and the environment from being harmed by corporations seeking profit.
Republicans have blocked every effort since the stimulus to maintain infrastructure, hire teachers, raise the minimum wage, give equal pay for women, stop special tax breaks for millionaires corporations (especially oil companies), stop tax breaks for sending jobs out of the country, provide student loan relief, help the long-term unemployed, and more. Instead they insist on even more tax breaks for oil companies and billionaires, on cutting environmental protections, deregulating oil companies, and so on.
Obstruction Using Senate Filibusters
How many bills have been filibustered by Senate Republicans since President Obama took office? Bloomberg’s Jonathan Bernstein, in “ All Filibusters, All the Time ,” writes, “The correct count of how many bills have been filibustered during Obama’s presidency is: approximately all of them.”
Here are just a few of the hundreds of bills Senate Republicans have filibustered since President Obama took office — just a few :
The following headlines are from last week’s “ Full Employment Is More Than Possible. It Is Essential. “
What would it have meant for the economy and jobs to launch a post-stimulus effort to maintain and modernize our infrastructure? How about reversing the tax structure that pays companies to move jobs out of the country? How about equal pay for women? How about a minimum wage increase? How about hundreds of thousands of teachers and first responders going back to work? How about being able to organize into unions to fight for wages, benefits and safer working conditions? How about relief from crushing student loan debt?
Waahh. Obama is one of the few President's in the last 100 years to have filibuster proof control of Congress. He pissed away his chance. Can't blame the Republicans for his own failure to accomplish anything.
A fleeting, illusory supermajority
It’s in Republicans’ interest right now to characterize the Democrats’ congressional majority in 2009 and 2010 as enormous. As the argument goes, President Obama could get literally anything he wanted from Congress in his first two years, so Democrats don’t have any excuses.
The stimulus wasn’t big enough? Blame Dems; they had supermajorities in both chambers for two years. There’s no comprehensive immigration reform? Blame Dems; they had supermajorities in both chambers for two years. There was only one big jobs bill? Blame Dems; they had supermajorities in both chambers for two years. And so on.
The right continued to push the line over the weekend.
I realize memories can be short in the political world, and 2010 seems like a long time ago, but it’s unnerving when professionals who presumably keep up with current events are this wrong. Even if various pundits lost track of the specific details, I’d at least expect Fox News hosts to remember Sen. Scott Brown’s (R) special-election win in Massachusetts.
Since memories are short, let’s take a brief stroll down memory lane, giving Wallace a hand with the recent history he’s forgotten.
In January 2009 , there were 56 Senate Democrats and two independents who caucused with Democrats. This combined total of 58 included Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-Mass.), whose health was failing and was unable to serve. As a practical matter, in the early months of Obama’s presidency, the Senate Democratic caucus had 57 members on the floor for day-to-day legislating.
In April 2009 , Pennsylvania’s Arlen Specter switched parties. This meant there were 57 Democrats, and two independents who caucused with Democrats, for a caucus of 59. But with Kennedy ailing, there were still “only” 58 Democratic caucus members in the chamber.
READ THE REST.
Yes, he pissed it away and the public elected Republicans to stop him. He accomplished nothing.
Thanks for demonstrating that 60 Senators caucused with the Democrats. Or if you think the idpendents, including the guy who almost won the Democratic Party nomination, weren't really democrats, point out a single bill they sided with Republicans on that made prevented the Democrats from passing a bill.
Just one bill stopped by the "independents" who caucused with the dems.
Yes, he pissed it away and the public elected Republicans to stop him. He accomplished nothing.
And you have validated the charge of obstructionism!
Obama tried for bi-partisan government and Republicans wouldn't have it.
You obviously weren't paying attention. At the only meeting he had with Republican leadership to discuss the stimulus he said elections have consequences and shut the Republicans out from the debate. He shut the door on cooperation from the get go.
Look it up.
Talk about a memory lapse ... All the times Obama said to Republicans, "if you have a better idea, bring it to me and I'll sign it."
All the while you guys were in the "I hope he fails" sabotage mode.
You obviously weren't paying attention. At the only meeting he had with Republican leadership to discuss the stimulus he said elections have consequences and shut the Republicans out from the debate. He shut the door on cooperation from the get go.
Look it up.
I did.
As for corporations … after the Wall Street folks almost crashed the world economy …
He still pushed the TTP and TTIP … but on the other hand, he did what was right for the average American …
Sean,
Do your own research instead of making pronouncements …
… and I'll rebut any misinformation you post … and concur with what's accurate.
One big problem though. What Obama has to say and what he does are two different things.
For example Obama once said we were Israel's best Ally, but then Obama gave Iran a road to nuclear weapons at the end of his term as President and tried to give the Palestinian Authority millions of dollars on Trump's inauguration day. He said many other things but did exactly the opposite throughout his time as President.
One big problem though. What Obama has to say and what he does are two different things.
Ummm... Obama isn't President any more. Isn't it time to write about Trump's foreign policy?
The response was to someone that was taking BO's word as gospel truth. RELEVANT. Never mind that taking BO's word as truth is just as ignorant as taking Trumps word as gospel truth. I would even argue it is worse as BO was devious in his lies and Trump is an amateur in comparison. (it is pretty easy to tell when he is lying)
Yes, he pissed it away and the public elected Republicans to stop him. He accomplished nothing.
Yes, Sean... fine... OK... we get that you hate Obama. But he's gone, Sean!
Now that Obama is gone... now the the GOP controls everything... what do you want to do?
The Republican Obstructionism Fucked the American Economy …
So, if your lead is true, how did Obama double the Dow (not that I believe any President has the ability to do that)?
You can't have it both ways.
Some things happen for the positive despite the efforts of saboteurs who work against it for selfish, partisan reasons.
investors invest primarily based on faith in a number of factors; clearly, the markets had an underlying faith in Obama despite Republican sabotage efforts.
Market gains under Trump are based on his deregulation promises ... Deregulation under Bush is what nearly brought the world economy to its knees in 2008.
Let's be real.
Market gains under Trump are based on his deregulation promises ... Deregulation under Bush is what nearly brought the world economy to its knees in 2008.
Actually, the housing bubble, caused by Democrats in reforming lending practices so everyone could own a McMansion had far more to do with the 2008 crash than any other deregulation.
You need to check your facts; Bush was responsible for the housing bubble; recall his "ownership society" and sub prime mortgages ... Short memories.
Spike..... AMac is really stretching out on this one. Maybe he doesn't remember old Barney Franks telling everyone not to fear or spread the fear when they were trying to gain some control on the housing market. Bush and even McCain tried to get the Democrats to tighten up on it, but I believe Barney Franks was over the Housing at that time and wouldn't have anything to do with it. Don't forget old Franklin Raines became a multi-millionaire and the Democrats were protesting in front of the bank CEO's homes because they didn't want to just loan to anyone who was breathing.
A lot of people were responsible for the housing burst.
Observers and analysts have attributed the reasons for the 2001–2006 housing bubble and its 2007–10 collapse in the United States to "everyone from home buyers to Wall Street , mortgage brokers to Alan Greenspan ". [3] Other factors that are named include " Mortgage underwriters , investment banks , rating agencies , and investors", [4] "low mortgage interest rates, low short-term interest rates, relaxed standards for mortgage loans, and irrational exuberance " [5] Politicians in both the Democratic and Republican political parties have been cited for "pushing to keep derivatives unregulated " and "with rare exceptions" giving Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac "unwavering support". [6]
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But the REGULATORS were Bush's.
This article is over a month old, for crissakes. Go home, put on the tin foil hat, and read 'Green Eggs and Ham'.
It may be a month old, but it still applies to the diminishing of the middle class which has been going on for many years prior to Obama. The "silent majority". This group were the workers who went about their business, paid their taxes, raised their families and never made a wave. The forgotten ones!
I think the middle class found their voices this last election.
The middle class voted for what turns out to be a pack of lies ... And don't lose sight of the fact that Trump lost the popular vote by about 10 million when counting the Green and Libertarian vote.
The haters and the frustrated gullible votes got Trump into the White House and now the chickens are coming home to roost ... With the Rooskis.
And it turns out, that the Democrats even lost that election by running a piss poor candidate that couldn't gain the trust of middle America, that doesn't include the number of other federal, state and local elections lost by them. The only explanation is that they were dangerously out of touch with Americans. I know few that wanted to vote for Trump, but what choice did the Dems give them? Not much of one, it turns out.
Yes. Fine. Hillary lost. Donald won.
We get that.
Now what?
The GOP holds absolute power... so... what do you think should be done? You know... it's called "governing".
And it turns out, that the Democrats even lost that election by running a piss poor candidate that couldn't gain the trust of middle America, that doesn't include the number of other federal, state and local elections lost by them. The only explanation is that they were dangerously out of touch with Americans. I know few that wanted to vote for Trump, but what choice did the Dems give them? Not much of one, it turns out.
Agreed that Clinton was a less than ideal candidate, but she overwhelmingly won the popular vote and that in spite of the Comey letter timed at the start of early voting and the Russian/Wikileaks … and there's more to come about that.
What hypocrisy that Republicans want to ignore the realities about Trump because they come via leaks, when they relentlessly "justified" and exploited the Wikileaks.
Wow- a shit storm must be getting ready to come down on the Trump supporters if you have to keep trying to redirect the conversation from what's going on now to past actions that are no longer relevant.
Smh........sad and desperate.
Where is Six at? I thought he'd at least chastise me a little bit....... :0(
I watched every speech Barrack Obama made, he was truly amazing.
No one can defend President* Trump, so we get a parade of articles attacking Obama and Clinton.
That is a tactic not unknown to you, Saul.
Tell me, Mr. Russell, how many derogatory articles did the liberals bring out about Pres. Bush for eight years?
What goes around comes around....it is part of the political scene.