It’s time for a reality check. Obama claims that America has now recovered from the economic recession he inherited, so now everything is peachy and we’re all so much happier thanks to his administration’s policies. However, truth be told, the facts tell a different story…
- According to federal data, by the 2013-14 school year, the number of homeless children in our public schools had doubled since before the recession–an 8% increase over just the previous year.
- The U.S. Department of Agriculture actually “boasted” that, in 2014, about 13.5 million students used the national School Breakfast Program every day–and at no cost for more than 10 million of them.
- According to EdBuild, the number of children in high-poverty districts, where more than 20% of the student body lives below the poverty line–rose from 15.9 million to 24 million between 2006 and 2013.
- EdBuild also found that the number of children attending schools where student poverty is above 40% rose from 1% to 4% of the national student population between 2006 and 2013.
- That same study found “in 2006, 6% of Florida students went to school in high-poverty districts. By 2013, 76% of the state’s school-age children were living in high-poverty districts.”
Add to all of that some the the findings presented by Stephen Moore in his January article, “Obama’s Illusory Economic Recovery.” His credentials speak for themselves: He’s the chief economist at the Heritage Foundation and is a Fox News contributor. A sampling:
- “This economic recovery is the slowest in 50 years.” Moreover, he says that, if the recession had improved at the average rate, we all would have about $10,000 more income per family than is now the case.
- “It’s been 20 years since Americans in the middle class got a pay raise that kept pace with inflation. Median income households today make $1,500 less than they did even since before the recession officially ended. The recession really hasn’t ended for half of all families.”
- “Inequality is worse.”
- From a Kauffman Index of Entrepreneurial Activity: “The rate of business creation dipped to just 0.28% of all adults in 2013.”
- From a 2014 Pew Research Poll: Just 34% of Americans think their children will be better off than they are.
- The debt has grown by $7.3 trillion, moving from under $11 trillion in 2009 to more than $18 trillion and growing in 2015.
- The percentage of those 25 and younger in the workforce hasn’t been this low since the early 1970’s.
Need I go on?