Obama Recovery Turns 5: Are You Better Off?

[Geee]

Investors Business Daily:

 

In a speech last week in Delaware, President Obama was positively bursting with pride about what his policies have produced since the economic recovery started five years ago.

"Our businesses have now added nearly 10 million new jobs over the past 52 months," he said, "Construction and housing are rebounding. The auto industry is booming. ... Manufacturing is adding jobs for the first time since the 1990s. The unemployment rate is at its lowest point since September of 2008."

Obama said that "the decisions we made — not only to rescue our economy, but to start rebuilding it on a firmer foundation — those decisions are starting to pay off."

He continued: "By almost every economic measure, we're doing a whole lot better now than we were when I came into office."

If all of what Obama claims is true, that certainly hasn't sunk in with the public.

The IBD/TIPP Economic Optimism Index, for example, is lower today (at 45.6) than it was in June 2009, the month that marks the official end of the last recession (when it stood at 50.8).