The end of 2016 has brought in the final economic numbers for President Barack Obama‘s presidency.
As we prepare for Obama’s reign of economic error to mercifully end, let’s take a look at the truth behind the state of the economy he’s leaving for President Donald Trump. Hint: It’s not nearly as rosy a picture as he’s trying to paint it.
Unemployment Rates
Now, Obama will say that December’s U-3 unemployment was only 4.7 percent (that’s up from 4.6 percent in November) but the “real” unemployment rate (U-6) is 9.2 percent. According to the Bureau of Labor and Statistics, U-3 is the total unemployed as a percent of the civilian labor force, while the U-6 is the total unemployed, plus all persons marginally attached to the labor force, plus total employed part-time for economic reasons, as a percent of the civilian labor force plus all persons marginally attached to the labor force. The U-6 gives us a much better picture of joblessness.
Another good measure of true unemployment is underemployment, which adds the amount of “unemployed workers, who are looking for work, to the amount of workers employed part time but seeking full-time work.” Gallup calculates that the underemployment rate was 13.7 percent in December 2016.
There are millions of Americans who want to be working full time but can only find part time employment, says the Washington Free Beacon:
There were 5,669,000 Americans working part-time in November who would rather have a full-time job but cited economic reasons for not having such employment.
According to the bureau, involuntary part-time workers are “persons who indicated that they would like to work full time but were working part time (1 to 34 hours) because of an economic reason, such as their hours were cut back or they were unable to find full-time jobs.”
Obama can white-wash it all he wants, but the fact is people are still struggling to make ends meet and find good steady jobs.
Job Creation
Obama touts that he created 10 million jobs over his 2 terms, but Obama’s own former economic advisor Alan Krueger says that 95 percent of the jobs that were counted in that number were temporary or part time, according to RT.
Jobs that come with access to healthcare, vacation time, the occasional sick day and Social Security and Medicare taxes paid through employers have declined under Obama’s presidency. One-million fewer people are working steady jobs than they were at the beginning of the recession, according to a study authored by Lawrence Katz at Harvard University and Alan Krueger at Princeton University.
While the Obama administration is prone to citing the 10 million jobs added to the economy over the past eight years, 95 percent of those are temporary, contractual jobs or part-time employment. Part-time employers are not obligated to provide any benefits for their employees, so when an employee gets sick they can either go to work or lose that day’s wages.
These are not the quality, well-paying jobs Obama promised to create.
By the way, to give you a further taste of how manipulative the Obama Administration is with their numbers, Press Secretary Josh Earnest recently claimed that 805,000 manufacturing jobs were created under President Obama. The truth is Obama presided over a LOSS of 303,000 manufacturing jobs from the start of his presidency in January 2009. Earnest cherry-picked data from 2010 to create his own number.
Labor Force Participation
In his last full month in office, President Barack Obama has hit a new record high! A record high number of Americans out of the labor force, that is: 95.1 million people are not working, reports CNSNews.com.
Barack Obama’s presidency began with a record number of Americans not in the labor force, and it’s ending the same way.
The final jobs report of the Obama presidency, released Friday, shows that the number of Americans not in the labor force has increased by 14,573,000 (18.09 percent) since January 2009, when Obama took office, continuing a long-term trend that began well before Obama was sworn in.
In December, according to the Labor Department’s Bureau of Labor Statistics, a record 95,102,000 Americans were not in the labor force, 47,000 more than in November; and the labor force participation rate was 62.7 percent, a tenth of a point higher than in November.
The participation rate dropped to a 38-year low of 62.4 percent on Obama’s watch, in September 2015. It was only 3-tenths of a point higher than that last month.
We have record highs of Americans out of the work force, and near record low rates of Americans participating in the work force. Heckuva job, Obama!
Deficit
Now we come to spending. “People think the deficit has gone up under my presidency when it’s actually gone down,” President Obama said ironically when bemoaning fake news. Technically that is only correct if you measure this year against Obama’s first year, not if you’re counting the rest of U.S. history.
For George W. Bush’s last year in office in 2008 the deficit was the highest it had ever been at $460 billion – but 7 of Obama’s 8 years in office have exceeded that number. When Obama came into power in 2009, the deficit more than tripled from the previous year’s record to $1.41 TRILLION!!! 2015 saw the lowest deficit in Obama’s tenure and it was $440 billion, just below Bush’s highest. For 2016 the deficit is projected to go back up to $620 billion. (Source for all these numbers.)
According to Investopedia, Obama holds the record for the largest total deficit:
Barack Obama’s budget is projected to run a deficit of $7.3 trillion over his eight years, making him the president with the largest budget deficit. George W. Bush is second, with a deficit of $3.29 trillion over his eight years. Ronald Reagan is third at $1.412 trillion deficit in eight years and George H.W. Bush comes in fourth with a $1.03 trillion deficit in his single term.
Which brings us to the national debt…
Debt
On the day President Obama was sworn into office (January 20, 2009) the national debt stood at an historic high of $10.6 trillion dollars. As of January 5, 2017, Obama has almost doubled the debt to an astounding $19.9 trillion.
Remember when candidate Obama said in 2008 that 43rd President George W. Bush was “driving up our national debt from $5 trillion for the first 42 presidents. Number 43 added $4 trillion by his lonesome, so that we now have over $9 trillion of debt that we are going to have to pay back — $30,000 for every man, woman and child. That’s irresponsible. It’s unpatriotic.”
Well, Obama drove up our national debt from $10.6 trillion for the first 43 presidents, and number 44 added over $9 trillion all by his lonesome – as of January 5, 2017, Obama has almost doubled the debt to an astounding $19.9 trillion that we are going to have to pay back – over $61,000 for every man, woman and child, and over $166,000 per U.S. taxpayer, according to the U.S. National Debt Clock on January 7, 2017. How irresponsible and unpatriotic is that?!
While Obama’s jobs record has been abysmal, President-elect Donald Trump is already creating and bringing back jobs to the U.S. – and he hasn’t even been sworn in yet! With his plans to bring down the national deficit and debt, Trump is poised to follow through on his promise to Make America Great Again. After Obama, we have nowhere to go but up.
What do you think Obama’s economic legacy will be? Sound off below!
