Obama’s Growing Economy

Who says President Barack Obama is bad for growth? True, U.S. gross domestic product grew 2 percent in the third quarter of 2012. However, comparing data from the time of the president’s January 20, 2009, inauguration with today’s latest figures proves that plenty of things have grown quite robustly during the Obama years.

When Obama took office, for instance, some 43.57 million Americans lived below the poverty line. Today, 46.25 million survive beneath that dismal threshold — up 6.1 percent.
While Americans have struggled to find work in the private sector, Washington has hung out the “now hiring” sign through these sluggish times. The federal civilian work force has grown under Obama, from 1,978,000 to 2,110,000 — up 6.7 percent.
Conversely, on Obama’s watch, the number of working-age Americans (ages 16 and above) who no longer are in the civilian labor force has grown from 80,502,000 to 88,710,000 — up 10.2 percent.
The number of Americans on Social Security Disability Insurance has grown under Obama, from 9.7 million to 10.8 million – up 11.3 percent.
Obamacare, the president promised, would reduce health-insurance costs. After all, this 2,801-page law is known officially as the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. And yet, average individual medical premiums rose from $4,824 to $5,615 — up 16.4 percent. Likewise, then-senator Obama promised that his reform proposals would make the typical family’s health-insurance policy go down by $2,500. As Obama declared in his second debate with John McCain in fall 2008: “We’re going to work with your employer to lower the cost of your premiums by up to $2,500 a year.” Instead, according to surveys by the Kaiser Family Foundation and the Health Research & Educational Trust, family premiums increased by almost the same amount: $2,370 (from $13,375 to $15,745) — up 17.7 percent.

Read more: http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/332257/obama-s-growing-economy-deroy-murdock