Things are better today in America than they were during the first few years of the Obama presidency, when the Great Recession was in full swing, and unemployment was high. Or so we’re told. While the employment rate is certainly lower today than at its peak of 10 percent, what is also true is that the overall quality of employment is nowhere near as good as it was prior to Obama’s two terms in office. In fact, the president’s policies have done more to harm employment and depress wages than to build them up. There is ancillary evidence of this everywhere you look:
— The current rate of economic expansion is the worst it’s been since World War II. In fact, it is worse than economists had believed. As noted by The Wall Street Journal: Since the recession ended in June 2009, the economy has advanced at a 2.2% annual pace through the end of last year. That’s more than a half-percentage point worse than the next-weakest expansion of the past 70 years, the one from 2001 through 2007. While there have been highs and lows in individual quarters, overall the economy has failed to break out of its roughly 2% pattern for six years. FULL REPORT
