The Obama administration has not always seemed to fully understand just how tough things are financially for lots of Americans.
In a speech in late April, for instance, President Barack Obama said, “We’re moving forward. Our economy is stronger; that economic heartbeat is growing stronger.” He has made similar assurances since then.
The administration offers those assurances despite unemployment at 9.6 percent, and “underemployment” that has millions more Americans working only part time when they need full-time jobs. And even as hundreds of thousands of our people continue to lose their homes to foreclosure, the administration says we’re “on the right track.”
All those assurances have been cold (or no) comfort to the unemployed, the underemployed and those who have lost their homes, because the president’s rhetoric does not create jobs, nor pay mortgages, nor buy groceries.
And ironically, there is now evidence that Americans’ economic circumstances were growing worse even as the president was proclaiming back in April that things were getting better. The Federal Reserve says that in the April-to-June quarter, American households lost a net $1.5 trillion in wealth. That includes losses in things such as the value of homes and other assets, as well as the value of 401(k) plans that many rely on for retirement.
The average U.S. household lost almost $13,000 in its net worth from just April through June, the Federal Reserve reported.
“Households failed even to run in place during the April-June quarter,” The Associated Press noted, and “household net worth would have to surge 23 percent to reach its pre-recession peak.”
Economists are saying it may be the middle of this decade – five years away! – before the American people even get back to where they were financially, much less make any progress.
Despite the president’s assurances to the contrary, we see little evidence that the president’s and congressional Democrats’ massive “stimulus” spending and their threats of higher taxes are turning the economy around.
Isn’t it past time for a different approach, since the current one has proved so counterproductive?