Are you better off today than when Obama took office?
- Energy — Gasoline was $1.67 a gallon; it’s now $3.79.
- Food — Average cost of a gallon of milk was about $2.65 then; it’s about $3.50 today.
- Housing — The median home was $229,600; today it’s $217,900
- Budget Deficit — We fell $438 billion short of balancing the federal budget in 2008; we missed it by $1.4 trillion this year—nearly four times higher.
- U.S. Debt — Total federal debt was $10.7 trillion then; $14.5 trillion now—nearly 50 percent higher.
- Unemployment — 7.3 percent of Americans were unemployed then; 9.1 percent are unemployed today.
- Employment Rate — 65.7 percent of Americans had jobs then; only 64.2 percent have them now.
- Mercatus Center (George Mason University) economist Veronique de Rugy noted in January that “federal employment has grown by 98,000 employees since the start of the recession.”
Learn more about the Institute for Policy Innovation at www.ipi.org.
(Source: butleronbusiness.com)
