Income Actually Down 24% Under Obama

Fox News reported yesterday that median household incomes have fallen 8.2 percent since Obama took office and continue to drop despite the recession "ending" in 2009. This only tells a fraction of the story.

With inflation running at 6-8% per annum since the financial crisis (that's right, 6-8%), median incomes have actually dropped not from $55,198 to $50,678, as Fox has reported, but from $55,198 to $42,062 in inflation-adjusted dollars (Jan. 2009 baseline), a decline of 24%. This decline of 24% is due to the loss of 2 million jobs since Obama took office and the erosion of job quality. (The majority of jobs created since Obama took office have been of the part-time, low-wage variety.)