Obama Promises To Fix Inequality He's Made Worse

[Geee]

Investors Business Daily:

A centerpiece of President Obama's second inaugural address was a call for greater economic equality, with the president saying that "our country cannot succeed when a shrinking few do very well and a growing many barely make it."

But that's precisely what's happened over the past four years, as Obama's economic policies left the majority of Americans falling behind while the wealthy few got further ahead.

Evidence of this is everywhere you look.

The official measure of income inequality — called the Gini index — has climbed every year Obama's been in office, while remaining flat during George Bush's eight years in the White House.

The latest Census data show that the average income of the already wealthiest 20% of families went up in 2011, while every other income group suffered losses. In the years Obama has been in office, average incomes among the poorest households fell nearly 8%, back to levels not seen since the mid-1980s.

Meanwhile, real average weekly earnings dropped almost 1% over the past two years.

Median household income is 7% below where it stood when Obama took office. And, according to a report from the National Employment Law Project, most of the high-paying jobs lost in the recession are being replaced by low-paying ones.

"The unbalanced recession and recovery have meant that the long-term rise in inequality in the U.S. continues," that report noted.