As the whole world knows by now, at a press conference last Friday, President Obama insisted that: “the private sector is doing fine.” Attempting to soften the impact of the statement, Jay Carney, the President’s press secretary, has urged that we take the comments “in context.”
Here’s the context:
522,000 American jobs have been lost since President Obama took office. This is the worst jobs “growth” on record for a sitting president.
23 million Americans are currently unemployed, underemployed, or have stopped looking for work. A far cry from the 6% Obama’s advisers predicted.
3 million homes have entered into foreclosure since President Obama’s inauguration. No wonder 72% of voters say he’s done nothing—or worse—to fix the housing crisis.
$4,300 in median annual household income has been lost by Americans since President Obama took office. He blamed this decline on President Bush.
46.4 million Americans are receiving food stamps, an increase of 45% from 31.9 million when President Obama took office. But the President still insists we’re still on the road to recovery.
146.4 million Americans qualify as low-income or in poverty. That’s 48 percent of the population.
39.7 weeks is the new average duration of unemployment, double 19.8 weeks when President Obama took office.
3.5% is the amount home prices have declined over the past twelve months. They’re now at their lowest in a decade.
Jay Carney is right to put his boss’s words in context: the numbers speak for themselves.
