Illusory "Middle Class Economics"

While the president claims his "Middle Class Economics" is working, economist Stephen Moore lists "a dirty bunch of hidden indicators pointing to an American economy that may be in a lot worse shape than Washington is telling us," especially for the middle class families.

• It's been 10 years since Americans in the middle class got a pay raise that kept pace with inflation.
• Food, energy, tuition and health care prices have been running two to three times the official inflation rate.
• Income inequality worsened in each of Obama's first four years in office, breaking all-time highs in both 2011 and 2012.
• Small business creation hasn't been this low since 2001.
• The national debt has grown by $7.3 trillion. Total debt was $11 trillion when Obama took office; today it's $18 trillion, and additional $120,000 of debt for each U.S. worker.
• The percentage of Americans under 25 who are in the workforce is at its lowest level since the early 1970s.
• Entitlement spending on Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and Obamacare is expected to nearly double in 2024 compared to 2013.

Read full article, Obama's Illusory Economic Recovery: Official Statistics Ignore the Real Hardships Families Face, by Stephen Moore

Why the Middle Class is Hurting

"The American middle class has absorbed a steep increase in the cost of health care and other necessities as incomes have stagnated over the past half decade, a squeeze that has forced families to cut back spending on everything from clothing to restaurants," reports the Wall Street Journal, which provides this chart on changes spending and income in middle class households since 2007.

Source: Basic Costs Squeeze Families, Ryan Knutson and Theo Francis, Wall Street Journal

Is Unemployment Rate Really 37.2%?

"Don't believe the happy talk coming out of the White House, Federal Reserve and Treasury Department when it comes to the real unemployment rate and the true 'Misery Index'," writes Paul Bedard at the Washington Examiner.

In a memo to clients provided to Secrets, David John Marotta calculates the actual unemployment rate of those not working at a sky-high 37.2 percent, not the 6.7 percent advertised by the Fed, and the Misery Index at over 14, not the 8 claimed by the government. ...

“The unemployment rate only describes people who are currently working or looking for work,” he said. That leaves out a ton more.

“Unemployment in its truest definition, meaning the portion of people who do not have any job, is 37.2 percent. This number obviously includes some people who are not or never plan to seek employment. But it does describe how many people are not able to, do not want to or cannot find a way to work. ..."

...if calculations tabulating the full national unemployment including discouraged workers, which is 10.2 percent, and the historical method of calculating inflation, which is now 4.5 percent, ‘the current misery index is closer to 14.7, worse even than during the Ford administration.”

No doubt contributing to the misery index is the nation's overall full-time job loss, as AEI's James Pethokoukis puts into perspective:

Here is a stat, reflected in the above chart, to think about: Before the Great Recession, there were 122 million full-time jobs in America. Now 4 1/2 years after its end, there are still just 118 million full-time jobs in America despite a labor force that is 1.6 million larger and a nonjailed, nonmilitary adult working-age population that is 14 million larger.