Please, More Fake “Official” Statistics, Mr. President!
In 2015, household income grew at the fastest rate on record, the poverty rate fell faster than at any point since 1968, and the uninsured rate continued to fall.
That was the title of an article the White House decided to publish on this website when the Presidential Campaign was at full steam. Median income increased +5.2%, the fastest growth rate since Income started getting measured in 1968!
On the next picture we can observe how Barack Obama is PROUDLY presenting these very stats. This is, by all means, a TREMENDOUS result for him during his last year of presidency. And, of course, a VERY handy piece of data for his successor Hillary Clinton – clear evidence that the current strategy is the right one!
A few hours later the Los Angeles Times published an article with the same data from the Census Bureau report although, adding a footnote below:
They changed the Income Questions’ Methodology in order to demonstrate growth!
The Question is: “What is going on??”
Further digging into the Census Bureau’s comparison guide & footnotes reveals the following:
Extract from Census Bureau website. First noticed by David Stockman
Actual growth for 2015 was the 5.2% marketed by Obama’s administration LESS the above 3.2%... only +2.0%!
And Who Profited From This +2% growth?
….Well, actually more than just 2%...
The graph below shows that during 2015 the income of the richest 5% (GREEN line) increased +13.6%
And half of the US population with lower income (RED line) were on LOWER salaries than what they were on in 1973.
Source: Economic Policy Institute
In other words, the REAL economy did NOT grow and the entire money printing machine ONLY made the richest even richer!
Add to this that any "recovery" is more a consequence of a 10 trillion dollar increase in debt from the current administration. Amazing...
Like 48% of adults have a full time job. You can almost see shit falling out of their mouth when they try to say the recovery was strong.
@dajohns1420 - Exactly! Employment manipulation is the whole different topic - need to write a post on it
While I generally avoid articles about politics, I appreciate a good article which explains how statistics can be manipulated and changed.
@lpfaust - thank you very much for this feedback! Glad you liked it)
This is a great article practically highlighting the blatant manipulation of our lives.
My favourite are the employment numbers. Of course employment numbers are up, people have 3 jobs at least, and the government employs the rest of the population as the highest employer!
Ha, ha - true! I think I will publish a quick post on employement - need to look at it together with labour force participation rate, quite interesting result.
This is more of the same from the gov't that we've seen the last 8 years, shaking my head. They do the same stuff with the unemployment figures
Damn it!) I thought I am opening your eyes here ;)
Ok.... will change the subject in the next one)
Haha - you are opening the eyes of 90% of people reading this. I'm just sadly as entrenched as you are in "digging behind the #'s" ;-)
@scaredycatguide - ok) then i will post smth like that ocassionally
BTW - just found out that I was not following you. That's corrected now!