“Welcome to the Recovery” said then-Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner in a New York Times op-ed published in August 2010. In Geithner’s view back then, credit for the “recovery” rested squarely with the Obama Administration’s stimulus and related economic policies: “The economic rescue package that President Obama put in place was essential to turning the economy around. The combined effect of government actions taken over the past two years — the stimulus package, the stress tests and recapitali... Read more

“A well designed recovery plan will not only create numerous jobs, but also many jobs paying good wages and providing full-time employment.” - Obama Administration’s “Romer Bernstein Report” on their trillion-dollar economic stimulus plan (officially titled “The Job Impact of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Plan”), January 2009. Now "Real average hourly earnings fell 0.2 percent in May, seasonally adjusted. Average hourly earnings was unchanged and the CPI-U rose 0.1 percent. Real averag... Read more

As Father’s Day (June 16) and the third anniversary of the Obama Administration declaration of the start of “Recovery Summer” (June 17) approach, it’s worth reviewing how men have been faring in the Obama economy. As the graphs below indicate, the answer is not well – especially for men in their prime working years who are the most likely to have young families to support this Father’s Day. “Part of what’s happening is that more men have been getting laid off and are having difficulty finding w... Read more

The Obama Administration once promised that, “A well designed recovery plan will not only create numerous jobs, but also many jobs paying good wages and providing full-time employment.” (Administration’s January 10, 2009 Romer-Bernstein Report on its economic stimulus plan, officially titled “The Job Impact of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Plan”) The actual result? Well, middle-class families have seen just the opposite – falling income. In fact, median household income is down nearly ... Read more

In 2009, Administration economists predicted that as a result of the Democrats’ trillion-dollar stimulus plan, the unemployment rate would never rise above 8 percent and would decline to 5 percent by mid-2013. The unemployment rate then soared above 8 percent for over three years, and has only recently declined because millions of people have simply given up even looking for work and aren’t even counted anymore. Yesterday, the Administration released its budget proposal, which predicts what man... Read more

The official unemployment rate fell in March because 496,000 people gave up looking for work and dropped out of the labor force, not because significant numbers of Americans found jobs. This was the largest one-month drop in the labor force since December 2009 and the largest drop in the month of March since March 1960 (-550,000). In fact, the survey that is used to calculate the unemployment rate showed that employment actually fell by 206,000 last month. The March 2013 labor force participati... Read more

Then: "It's about jobs. In its life, it [ObamaCare] will create 4 million jobs -- 400,000 jobs almost immediately." (Then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi at the Administration’s “Health Summit” on February 25, 2010) Now : “I’ve got a news flash for you. The Affordable Care Act is not a jobs program.” (Jared Bernstein, former chief economist for Vice President Biden and co-author of the Administration’s January 2009 “Romer Bernstein Report” on CNBC, March 8, 2013) Read more

Today, in a letter in response to a request by Chairman Dave Camp (R-MI), the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) stated that the Obama Administration’s July 2012 “memorandum” that allows States to waive work and activity requirements for welfare recipients would cost Federal taxpayers almost $60 million over the coming decade. According to the CBO letter, the Obama Administration’s policy would “lower the potential penalties assessed by the federal government for states’ failure to m... Read more

February 17, 2013, will mark the fourth anniversary of Democrats’ failed 2009 stimulus plan – and yet another year in which Democrats’ economic policy promises turned out to be oversold and underperforming. As displayed below, despite adding $1 trillion to the national debt, this 2009 legislation has been followed by 2.8 million fewer jobs and an unemployment rate 2.7 percentage points higher than Democrats predicted in selling their 2009 policy. JOBS: Still 2.8 million fewer jobs than the Admi... Read more

Tomorrow, the President will describe the state of the union, including the state of the economy for workers and families. Americans are likely to hear more of the same from recent years – how Administration policies (1) laid a new foundation for future growth, (2) saved or created millions of jobs, and even (3) prevented another Depression. Despite the lofty rhetoric, however, the actual employment experience of millions of Americans still, in a word, stinks. It’s not hard to see why. Even as ... Read more