Obama's Median Income Half of Reagan's

Ed Schultz was ranting on MSNBC last week about President Obama’s approval rating among average Americans, which is currently languishing at 45 percent. Schultz complained, “It amazes me that people don't love Obama . . . It just amazes me he can't get above 50 percent when it comes to a favorable view of the economy.”

Maybe it’s because the average American has more common sense than a leftist shout show host like Schultz. While Schultz is hobnobbing with the rich, famous, and smug, average Americans are trying to make ends meet. And in many instances they are covering the spread with less money than their parents had.

Case in point: When my father was president in 1989 the median household income was $51,681. In 2012 — 23 years later and five years into the current Age of Obama — the median household income is $51,017, which is $664 less.

But that figure understates the magnitude of the Obama administration’s economic failure. When we account for inflation during those 23 years the disparity is shocking. Using the handy calculator at westegg.com, we find that simply allowing for inflation, with no economic growth, the median household income would have to be $94,234 to equal what Americans were earning under my father, the man Schultz slanders as “Mr. Trickle-Down Economics.”

Looking at the numbers another way, the Obama median household income would only have the buying power of $27,612 in 1989 and that’s almost half of the Reagan economy total.

Frankly, I’m surprised Obama’s rating is as high as 45 percent.

And median household income is not the only place Obama falls short. Under his economic "leadership" the country has the lowest labor participation percentage in 34 years. Less than 64 percent of the able-bodied American workforce is employed. You have to go back to another Democrat President, Jimmy Carter, to find figures this dismal.

This is a participation rate the Kansas City Federal Reserve Bank describes as, “a period defined by the boomer retirement, millennial frustration, and growing reliance on government programs. All indicators suggest this shift is not sustainable."

This wreckage Obama calls an economy is the direct result of an administration that stimulates the growth of government at the expense of the private sector and attempts to seize another 17.6 percent of the gross domestic product through Obamacare.

Leftists and government workers love Obama and well they should, but the only thing that trickles down to the rest of us from those groups is contempt.