Atlas Forum: Respond to this Image

[Sprouts Farmers Market ✘]

LOL foxnews

Are you disputing any of the numbers?

I'd dispute the 2nd and 3rd. There's no way they're worse than January 2009.

Usually disputing requires facts. I highly doubt you will find a single point to align with your assertion on number three because that's not even intuitively correct. The fact on number two you might find something (I have struggled to), but I found a similar image to OP online, and all the numbers were similar except wages were down 0.8%, so the OP graphic either changed drastically or was falsified. I know Obama has made strides to help lower income salary earners with the overtime rules of late. Not sure if that's taken effect yet, but it could explain the disparity as it would not affect median but would help the average significantly. And it would also explain the large jump since the April numbers I was seeing. Considering the OP uses weekly wages, that could very well be the case for a recent phenomenon to improve that figure. Still, that's a case of both numbers being accurate to determine different measures - not that Fox Business had the wrong number. I searched pretty thoroughly to find something to contradict it to no avail. Intuitively, 2009 median income remained high because why would wages immediately go down, when the only issue was with joblessness. Salaries didn't decline.

But when UE started as high as it is, why would wage growth be expected under his watch? The goal has been to put those who want to work back in work. Hard to do those two simultaneously.

[RTX]

Is it all fact? What's NOT shown in those stats? Refute it, agree with it, prove it, respond to this image. Was Obama a super-president?

Wind and solar power was already increasing very heavily on a year-by-year basis before 2009. Obama had absolutely nothing to do with the increase in oil production and decrease in imports. The Fed and QE were the biggest driver behind the S&P 500 increase, the other being that he happened to come into office very close to the bottom and no policy/action/etc. ended the correction - so many of these numbers may be true, but are misleading as to Obama's impact and influence on them.

I also find it funny that the people in this tent that probably think oil production is racist and going to kill everybody on the planet in 10 years are bragging about it increasing during Obama's tenure.

[Mister Mets]

One interesting point is that one of the biggest boons to the economy occurred in spite of President Obama.

This was the energy boom brought on by the fracking revolution.

[RI]

LFP is unquestionably down, but that's independent of the economic conditions and almost entirely due to the rising proportion of retirees.

[Intell]

1. It's a debt, deal with it. The world just had an econmic recession, and we needed government spending. Bush also increased the debt more than Obama with 2 wars, and horrible economic but you never hear about that.

2. Median Income has been declining, but that is more of the fault of the economic recession, that you know bush caused. It will rise when the recession is fully over, and if we have a new deal style program.

3. Baby Boomers are retiring you know... Unemployment has gone down to 5.3%, you know. More than .7% that Romney said he would get it down for.

4. I don't see how spending more for the welfare of citizens, is a bad thing. I see that as a positive increase.

[dudeabides]

1. It's a debt, deal with it. The world just had an econmic recession, and we needed government spending. Bush also increased the debt more than Obama with 2 wars, and horrible economic but you never hear about that.

2. Median Income has been declining, but that is more of the fault of the economic recession, that you know bush caused. It will rise when the recession is fully over, and if we have a new deal style program.

3. Baby Boomers are retiring you know... Unemployment has gone down to 5.3%, you know. More than .7% that Romney said he would get it down for.

4. I don't see how spending more for the welfare of citizens, is a bad thing. I see that as a positive increase.

1. You are completely inaccurate here. Bush increased the national debt by $5 trillion over eight years, President Obama has increased it by $8 trillion in 6 years and 8 months.

2. You are right, median income has fallen since 2000. But at least there were periods of income growth under President Bush, there hasn't been as much under President Obama.

3. That explains some of the drop in the labor participation rate, but not all of it. Additionally, many of the jobs that have been created are part-time.

4. Spending more on welfare for citizens means they are having a tough time making ends meet.

[Negusa Nagast 🚀]

lol @ this faux Republican concern over the labor participation rate. The decline started with Bush and accelerated with the onset Great Recession. Of course, Obama is somehow to blame for this structural problem/Republican spawned phenomena.

[Kingpoleon]

After the last ten years of economic blight, the American people and the American workers deserve positivity.

Let me make one concession to the Democrats: two of those years were under a Republican.

[pbrower2a]

I particularly hate these stats because we're counting growth since the beginning of his presidency, which is like, the bottom of a fiery pit. We should not measure growth; we should measure raw numbers. And compared to what's "normal," the indicators don't paint as much of a glowing picture.

That was a very deep pit, and we can give him credit for turning around an economic downturn that after a year and a half was as severe as the one beginning in 1929.

[PJ]

Mostly positive. As has been stated, Obama's decision not to engage in austerity like European leaders is what has spurred the US's economic recovery ahead of other countries. However, not all of these numbers can be totally credited to Obama, and an increase in corporate profits and crude oil production are not statistics I'd view positively.

lol @ this faux Republican concern over the labor participation rate.

Right-wingers only seem to care about the working poor now that is politically convenient for them.

[dead0man]

Can we at least all agree that Presidents get too much credit AND blame (depending on the side of the aisle the person crying or praising is) for pretty much everything?

[Marokai Backbeat]

Can we at least all agree that Presidents get too much credit AND blame (depending on the side of the aisle the person crying or praising is) for pretty much everything?

I'd say this is broadly true, but PJ is definitely right that it is largely due to Obama's stubbornness in favor of growth policies as opposed to austerity policies that the US recovery was much better than most other countries hit hard by the recession.

Of course, I don't really think the recovery is all that durable, and shouldn't inspire any kind of chest-beating, but Obama deserves a little bit of credit.

[Cassius]

Of course the economy has recovered. Whether or not that is down to the policies pushed for by Obama or down to more... intangible factors is a different matter altogether.

[🦀🎂🦀🎂]

Not to sound like FREEBIRD (I'm a partisan myself) but it's clear that economic statistics can be tortured very easily to show your preconceived notions.

[Cory]

Fewer Americans are in the workforce today than the day the President took office. Incomes are down, home ownership is down, health care costs are up, the national debt is up, corporate welfare is up, the number of people in poverty is up, the deficit is still higher today than it was in 2009, the only areas where we are better off is energy costs are coming down and the stock market is doing well, the stock market primarily benefits the wealthy.

So can you're saying that trickle-down economics doesn't work?

[DC Al Fine]

LFP is unquestionably down, but that's independent of the economic conditions and almost entirely due to the rising proportion of retirees.

That's not quote true. LFP for 25-54 year olds is down about two percentage points as well.