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发帖数: 29846 | 1 Stephen Moore: Obama's Economy Hits His Voters Hardest
Young people, single women and minorities have fared the worst during the
past four years.
By
STEPHEN MOORE
For better or worse, a truism of American politics is that voters vote their
pocketbooks. Yet according to a new report on median household incomes by
Sentier Research, in 2012 millions of American voters apparently cast
ballots contrary to their economic self-interest.
Each month the consultants at Sentier analyze the numbers from the Census
Bureau's Current Population Survey and estimate the trend in median annual
household income adjusted for inflation. On Aug. 21, Sentier released "
Household Income on the Fourth Anniversary of the Economic Recovery: June
2009 to June 2013." The finding that grabbed headlines was that real median
household income "has fallen by 4.4 percent since the 'economic recovery'
began in June 2009." In dollar terms, median household income fell to $52,
098 from $54,478, a loss of $2,380.
What was largely overlooked, however, is that those who were most likely to
vote for Barack Obama in 2012 were members of demographic groups most likely
to have suffered the steepest income declines. Mr. Obama was re-elected
with 51% of the vote. Five demographic groups were crucial to his victory:
young voters, single women, those with only a high-school diploma or less,
blacks and Hispanics. He cleaned up with 60% of the youth vote, 67% of
single women, 93% of blacks, 71% of Hispanics, and 64% of those without a
high-school diploma, according to exit polls.
According to the Sentier research, households headed by single women, with
and without children present, saw their incomes fall by roughly 7%. Those
under age 25 experienced an income decline of 9.6%. Black heads of
households saw their income tumble by 10.9%, while Hispanic heads-of-
households' income fell 4.5%, slightly more than the national average. The
incomes of workers with a high-school diploma or less fell by about 8% (-6.9
% for those with less than a high-school diploma and -9.3% for those with
only a high-school diploma).
To put that into dollar terms, in the four years between the time the Obama
recovery began in June 2009 and June of this year, median black household
income fell by just over $4,000, Hispanic households lost $2,000 and female-
headed households lost $2,300.
The unemployment numbers show pretty much the same pattern. July's Bureau of
Labor Statistics data (the most recent available) show a national
unemployment rate of 7.4%. The highest jobless rates by far are for key
components of the Obama voter bloc: blacks (12.6%), Hispanics (9.4%), those
with less than a high-school diploma (11%) and teens (23.7%).
This is a stunning reversal of the progress for these groups during the
expansions of the 1980s and 1990s, and even through the start of the 2008
recession. Census data reveal that from 1981-2008 the biggest income gains
were for black women, 81%; followed by white women, 67%; followed by black
men, 31%; and white males at 8%.
In other words, the gender and racial income gaps shrank by more than in any
period in American history during the Reagan boom of the 1980s and the
Clinton boom of the 1990s. Women and blacks continued to make economic
progress during the mini-Bush expansion from 2002-07. "Income inequality"
has been exacerbated during the Obama era.
Related Video
Editorial board member Steve Moore on why President Obama’s biggest
supporters have suffered the most under his leadership.
Mr. Obama has often contemptuously, and wrongly, branded the quarter-century
period of prosperity beginning with the presidency of Ronald Reagan as a "
trickle down" era. For many in the groups that Mr. Obama set out to help, a
return to the prosperity of that era would be a vast improvement.
The Census Bureau data on incomes include cash government benefits, such as
unemployment insurance, disability payments and the earned-income tax credit
(but excludes Medicaid and food stamps). Most of the cash programs have
surged in cost during the Obama presidency, yet incomes have still declined
for the lowest-income eligible groups. This suggests that wages and salaries
from employment have shrunk at an even faster pace than the Census data
show. The shrinking paychecks of the past four years are consistent with two
unwelcome anomalies of the recovery: a swift decline in labor-force
participation to 63.4% from 65.5% during that period and a rise in part-time
employment.
What all of this means is that the stimulus-led economic revival that began
officially in June 2009—Vice President Joe Biden's famous "summer of
recovery"—has only resulted in lower incomes for at least half of Americans
, the very ones who were instrumental in electing Mr. Obama twice.
The president's announced economic policy goal, as well as that of
progressives generally, is to spread the wealth. The left seems to have
forgotten that when fewer American businesses and workers are creating
wealth in the first place, something else is spread instead: misery.
Mr. Moore is a member of the Journal's editorial board.
A version of this article appeared September 4, 2013, on page A13 in the U.S
. edition of The Wall Street Journal, with the headline: Obama's Economy
Hits His Voters Hardest. |
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