It's not about median wage, it's about jobs.
That’s like telling a New York Yankees fan it’s not about winning it’s about playing the game.
Sure to win you must play the game but the goal is to win the game.
Same with a job – sure you want a job but you shouldn’t be satisfied with a minimum wage job. We need good paying jobs – the sort that have been disappearing for over 20 years.
Obama has the highest average unemployment rate of any president since records have been kept (9.9%). Given, a lot of factors play into that, and much isn't entirely his fault. He did come into a bad situation that, in turn, wasn't entirely his predecessor's fault.
Just to keep up with population growth the economy must create about 134k private sector jobs/month. That’s 1.6 million private sector jobs/year just to keep up with population growth in the labor market.
The fact is that under Bush, private sector employment flat.
Jan 2001 private sector employment : 111,634,000
Jan 2009 private sector employment: 110,961,000
In 8 years rather than create 12.8 million private sector jobs just to keep up with population growth, we lost .7 million private sector jobs. This is adding 13.47 million to the ranks of the unemployed over Bush’s 8 years in office. That’s an average rate of a deficit of -1.68 million private sector jobs/ year lost.
Obama’s record was worse in his first year In office.
Obama has been in office since Jan of 2009.
Private sector employment in Jan 2009: 110,961,000
Private sector employment in Aug 2010: 107,870,000
That’s a loss of 3.1 million jobs over the course of 19 months from Jan 09 to Aug 2010.
Just to stay even he needed to create 2.6 million private sector jobs during those 19 months.
That’s a net private sector job deficit of 5.6 million private sector jobs.
Average this over 19 months: that’s a yearly deficit of -5.6 million private sector jobs.
Bush’s yearly private sector job deficit -1.68 million jobs.
Obama yearly private sector job deficit -5.6 million jobs.
One thing we can say in favor of Obama.
During Bush’s last year we lost jobs in every month.
During Obama’s last 8 months we’ve actually gained jobs but less than the 134k private sector jobs /month needed to just stay even with population growth.
Not all of this is due to Bush’s policies. Clinton is to blame as well. Probably most of the blame goes to Republican policies since the Reagan era.
Source of employment data:
http://data.bls.gov:8080/PDQ/servlet/SurveyOutputServlet;jsessionid=6230321aa468213a126fAlso, I think you're acting like a racist. I didn't even notice what you noticed until you pointed it out. When will liberals stop taking notice of skin color?
This is totally nuts.
So, pointing out a problem – for example, if I should criticize the slave trade in which blacks were shipped from Africa to America – I would be “acting like a racist” – cut to the chase, I would be a racist.
This is exactly your position.
I would be a racist because I noticed that the people being shipped to become slaves are a part of different race. So, that’s racism -- noticing skin color. Buying, selling and shipping blacks would be fine as long as we don’t notice their race.
You’re in great shape then – you don’t notice skin color. You can treat people anyway you want and not be racist.
It isn’t the slave buyers and traders that are racists it’s the one who points out a problem with the situation who is a racist because he notices a difference in skin color.
I realize that you're just thoughtlessly repeating a conservative mantra.
I suggest you examine it a bit more carefully.
Conservatives have gone totally crazy.
Source: BLS
http://data.bls.gov:8080/PDQ/servlet/SurveyOutputServlet;jsessionid=6230321aa468213a126fUnemployment rates are measured in six different ways. The BLS has tables for U1 Unemployment rate (the % of the labor force unemployed for 15+weeks), through U6.