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Obama’s Economy: The President’s Challenge in 17 Charts

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http://www.thefiscaltimes.com/Articles/2012/11/07/Obamas-Economy-The-Presidents-Challenge-in-Charts.aspx

The U.S. has enjoyed a decades-long stretch of economic prosperity. The Great Recession was the most severe break in that stretch.While the economy has been growing since the second half of 2009, that growth has been bumpy –and modest at best.

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The Federal Reserve has pushed interest rates to historically low levels in an attempt to speed the recovery.

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And although the low interest rates have fueled fears among some that inflation will become a problem, core inflation (blue) has been tame even as food and gas prices have been somewhat volatile.

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Low interest rates have helped stabilize the housing market after a long and painful bust. Housing remains far from robust, but there are early signs of real improvement in an area of the economy that had been a huge drag on growth.

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The stock market, which has surged during Obama's time in office, regaining much of what it lost during the crisis.

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The wealth effect from the housing and stock market gains has resulted in improved consumer confidence.

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While consumers are just starting to feel better, businesses have fared well since the downturn, with profits rebounding to record levels.

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Still, as consumers have grown more confident lately, businesses have been growing more anxious. Companies have recently been scaling back their spending due to increasing worries about sputtering economic growth around the world.

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Souring corporate sentiment could be a worrisome development for a job market that, while still depressed, has been improving. The economy has added 2.1 million jobs over the last year, but it is still more than 4 million jobs shy of where it was in January 2008.

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The private sector has at least been adding some jobs, while the government has been shedding them, at least until lately.

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The unemployment rate, which hit 10 percent in October 2009, has dropped below 8 percent. Yet it is still historically high, at 7.9 percent as of last month–a tick above the 7.8 percent level it was at when Obama took office in 2009.

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The percentage of Americans with jobs is near a 30-year low.

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Discouraged workers have left the job market, though some have come back recently as the employment picture has shown signs of improvement.

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Even as the jobs market has gotten modestly stronger, real income has been stagnant.

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And wages, as a percentage of the overall economy, have fallen to historic lows.

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With demographic shifts and high unemployment, the government has been spending more and more on entitlement programs like Social Security and Medicare.

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Which exacerbates another looming problem: The federal debt has ballooned, leading many economists to worry that it will prevent future growth. And the annual budget deficit has been more than $1 trillion in each of Obama's four years in office. And though President Obama and leaders in Congress will need to come up with a long-term plan to address those big budgetary issues, they also have a more immediate problem to solve: the fiscal cliff.

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