Of course, never denied the low rate happened in his 2nd term. However, the 3.9% rate Bush inherited certainly helps cut down the average when he left with 8%! It still factors in.
You deny it by not ever mentioning it in your analysis of the decade. The unemployment rate did not go above 8% until Obama was in office. Sure, the work Clinton did does factor in and helps to show that the past decade was indeed NOT the decade from hell, or the worst decade since the 1930s.
You are wrong that unemployment started to rise when Clinton was in office, the recession began in March 2001.
The technical definition of a recession started in March 2001 with negative GDP growth. But the GDP had started its decline in September of 2000 when Clinton was still in office.
In 2000, Clinton's last year in office, the unemployment rate started at 4 and went to 3.9, so no change at all there. You are still missing the point, Clinton started with 6.9% and went to 3.9%, Bush started here and went up! Who did better?
Nope, your missing the point. Your first month in office and your last month in office is not what defines a presidency or a decade. Its also everything that happened in between that time. By just looking at the starting month and the last month, your ignoring 99% of the data in either evaluating two Presidential terms or an entire decade. That leads to an inaccurate analysis on who did better, or what life was like for the average person during the decade.
The average levels of unemployment, inflation, poverty rate, GDP growth, and debt as a percentage of GDP show that Bush either did better, equal to, or almost as good as Clinton on several of these economic indicators.
Again, you show no understanding of statistics. Clinton started with a 15.1% poverty rate, falling to 11.3% in 2000. It was historically low because it started from a historically low base of the Clinton years! The poverty rate WENT UP every single year Bush was in office!
You can't evaluate 8 years in office or an entire decade by just looking at the first year and the last year.
The poverty rate DID NOT go up every single year Bush was in office! It declined in both 2005 and 2006! The average poverty rate during the Clinton years was 13.3%, the average during the Bush years was 12.5%. The FACT is, a larger percentage of people lived in poverty during the Clinton years than the Bush years!
Yes, it was low, compared to pre 1970s or late 80s/early 90s, but not as low as Clinton got it! Again, what happened when each was in office- what did the trajectory look like? That is what matters.
Trajectories for such economic indicators often go up and down over such a long period of time. The first month and the last month of a two presidential administrations or an entire decade is NOT what is relevant when evaluating what life was like for people THROUGHOUT the entire decade. In order to analyze that, you must use every bit of economic data one has from the time, not just the first month and the last month which tells you virtually nothing about what happened during the other 118 months of the decade.
The fact that some Bush years are lower poverty than some Clinton years does not tell us anything about the situation each President started with or anything about how the policies of each helped or hurt the poverty rate.
It tells you far more than just looking at the first month of a decade and looking at the last month of a decade and attempting to analyze what the decade was like just on that. There were 118 other months in the decade, and yes, sustained periods of time where people live relatively very well compared to even the 1990s! But you don't get to see that when you narrow the data you consider to just the first month and the last month of the decade!
Median household income, 2000 vs 2008, how is that not fair?
No one said it was not fair, just that it was not as representitive of the level of hardship during the decade compared to economic indicators like Unemployment rate, inflation rate, poverty rate etc. No one uses median household income figures to evaluate the Great Depression or the late 70s or early 80s economic downturn.
It gives an accurate picture of what happened at beginning of Bush vs end of Bush. Those wonderful middle years you talk about did not see any increase in household income anyway.
I'm actually not sure about that given that you have inaccurately reported the poverty rate during those years, and have ignored all the other economic indicators which show a more complex sequence of events.
The "good times" were financed by easy credit and using homes as ATM's!
For some people yes, for most people it was because they had a JOB and were not living in POVERTY!
Households are mostly families, and the 2 trends mirror each other, so your attempt at cleverness is nothing more than hair splitting.
Actually, only half are families and the number is declining. A household can be just one person, or multiple people living together. The median income for families is higher than just that for households.
Figures don't lie, but liars figure.
Talking about yourself?
It misses something? Are you on crack?
Are you?
Bush created Millions of jobs- count them- 2 MILLION NET versus 23 MILLION NET for Clinton.
Just taking a lump some net figure again misses so many of the jobs that were created and that people had BEFORE the recession started in 2008!
Even when jobs were being created- during the 04-06 period, it was still the weakest post war recovery on record.
Not when looking at unemployment, inflation, poverty rate, and GDP growth as well as debt as a percentage of GDP. Again, we saw the 4th longest run of uenmployment being BELOW 5% during this period of time!
It is not cherry picking in anyway, looking at the period from 2000-2009 includes ALL MONTHS.
No it doesn't. When you just look at the first month and last month of Clinton or the first month and last month of Bush, your only looking at those months. Figures from 2000 and figures from 2009, DO not include figures from 2001 through 2008. When you take the average of all those months as I have done, THAT DOES INCLUDE those months from 2001 to 2008, which is why it is a more accurate and representitive statistic of how things were during the decade.
No things were not very, very good. Unemployment declined, but it always does after recessions.
Again, thats false. Unemployment does not always decline after recessions. In fact, it often goes up. It took nearly 15 years for the country to get out of the Great Depression. The current recession ended in July, but compare the current unemployment rate now, to that in July.
The overall jobs picture, both in terms of number created and how well they pay, show clearly the economic situation was worse than all other post war recoveries.
The unemployment rate, inflation rate, poverty rate, GDP growth rate, and debt as a percentage of GDP do not show that! The averages of those economic indicators during the Bush years are some of the best ever in US history. This is a FACT!
If you want to call that very, very good, it is just another way of showing you don't know what you are talking about! The annual poverty rate figures have already been addressed.
I'm looking at the actual numbers for the relevant statistics, not attempting assess other forum members knowledge on the subject or declare someone as a bad President or that it was the decade from hell. If you look at the statistics on the unemployment rate, inflation rate, poverty rate, GDP growth rate, and debt as a percentage of GDP, you find that the Bush years had the some of the best averages of these indicators in US history. Again, this is a FACT!
Really?!! Get Strongbow a nobel prize in economics, right now!!! Really? People are going to be better off in a lukewarm expansion than they are in the worst recession since the great depression?! How profound, never thought this notion would see the light of day!
Guess what the topic of this thread is, The Decade From Hell. I'm only pointing out that it was NOT the decade from hell and NOT the worst decade since the Great Depression! I'm sorry its taken you this long to realize that!
Just stop. Obama inherited a recession that started in 2007, that Bush policies had alot to due with, and 2008 was the worst yr of this recession in terms of job loss, GDP loss and stock market loss.
Maybe you should stop and consider the data before responding. The annual unemployment rate for 2008 was 5.8%, Bush's last year in office. The annual unemployment rate for 2009 was 9.3%, Obama's first year in office. The worst year of this recession for job loss was 2009, NOT 2008 which saw an unemployment rate as low as 4.8% in February 2008!
Obama has restored real growth, slowed down monthly job loss, and shown a marked improvement in the stock market. Are things as good as 2006, no, but LOOK WHERE OBAMA STARTED THEN LOOK AT THE TRAJECTORY, IT IS POSITIVE SINCE HE ENTERED!!
Well lets look at where Obama started in January 2009 and where he is now based on the latest data:
Unemployment rate 2009:
January 7.7% Obama enters office
February 8.2%
March 8.6%
April 8.9%
May 9.4%
June 9.5%
July 9.4%
August 9.7%
September 9.8%
October 10.1%
November 10.0%
December 10.0% latest unemployment figure available.
Figures don't lie, but liars figure!
Refering to yourself?
And objectively, it sucked. It did not match the 1990s or any other post 1945 expansion.
In terms of the unemployment rate, inflation rate, poverty rate, GDP growth rate, and debt as a percentage of GDP, the past decade had some of the best averages in US history for these economic indicators. This proves that it was NOT the decade from hell, nor was it the worst decade for people in the country since the Great Depression, which is the claim made by the topic!
Your claim that the 90s were worse than the 00s for debt as a percentage of GDP is just a joke.US Federal Debt As Percent Of GDP in United States 1792-2010 - Federal State Local
I mis-spoke and was actually refering to the Clinton years VS the Bush years. Its true that with all the data in now, that on average the 00s have been worse than the 90s in terms of debt as a percentage of GDP,
but not by much. The figures for both decades are close to each other. Certainly not a joke at all!
Average Debt as a percentage of GDP under Clinton:
64.40%
Average Debt as a percentage of GDP in the 90s:
63.80%
Average Debt as a percentage of GDP under Bush:
63.62%
Average Debt as a percentage of GDP in the 00s:
65.75%
Does not matter. Same principle applies here as poverty rates. Debt as percentage of GDP had been increasing for quite some time when Clinton took office.
It does matter because were discussing in this thread the level of burden to the country and the people living there during the past decade. The discussion is not actually about how or why people were living in x level of burden, but wheather or not this past decade was the decade from hell or not? Plus debt as a percentage of GDP continued to increase during the first years of the Clinton administration.
He inherits it high, with slow GDP growth. Of course, it takes time to reverse, so a high % inherited plus a high deficit inherited equals more debt. So it takes Clinton some time to get the deficit down, hence the already high debt burden will be added to for some time.
Lets be clear, Debt as a percentage of GDP was still relatively HIGH when Clinton left office. Thats part of the reason why that during his 8 years in office, the average debt as a percentage of GDP was higher than during the Bush years. Also, the 90s and 00s are virtually no different in terms of Debt as a percentage of GDP on average. There for, the burden to the country and people during both decades in regards to this economic indicator was about the same.
However, that had stabilized since 1993, whereas before that, Reagan and Bush were shooting it up every year. In 1980, debt % of GDP was 32%, when Clinton came in, it was 66%!!
The reason debt as a percentage increased so dramatically from 1980 to the middle of the Clinton years was primarily because of the expansion of entitlement programs starting in the late 1970s and early 1980s not because of defense spending as so many in the past have claimed.
He reduced the deficit every year, added less to the debt burden every year, and then in the end, added nothing to it absent interest from previous deficit years. When Clinton leaves, debt % of GDP is 57%. As soon as Bush gets in, it starts back up again. Increases every year to 90% when he leaves in January 2009!! So 66-57% for Clinton versus 57-90% for Bush clearly shows who did better on this account.
Again, the peacetime of the 1990s allowed for more attention to be payed to reducing the deficit. Bush had to deal with many different crises during his time in office that Clinton did not. Despite that, when we look at the average for each Presidents time in office, debt as a percentage of GDP was lower under Bush than Clinton despite the fact that Bush faced greater crises during his years in office than Clinton!
From 2001 through 2007, debt as a percentage of GDP was lower than the highest point of the Clinton years. This is 75% of Bush's time in office. But again, this point gets missed because you never look at the middle years. Debt as a percentage of GDP did not jump dramatcially until the last 2 years of Bush's time in office.
Hell, the average you talk about would too! One balances a budget and runs 2 surpluses, the other inherits a surplus and never produces anything other than a deficit.
Again, the average debt as a percentage of GDP was lower under Bush than Clinton when looking at the years 1993-2000 and 2001-2008! Again, look at the crises that Clinton had to deal with VS what Bush had to deal with. It makes a huge difference in all of this. Just look at past years in US history. Crises increases debt as a percentage of GDP. Clinton may have passed Bush a surplus, but he also passed onto Bush the problems of Saddam Hussian in Iraq, and the Taliban and Al Quada in Afghanistan!
Means nothing! Again, look at what Clinton inherited vs Bush. You falsely accuse me of cherry picking then pick out 1 year of the Clinton administration? So in case you forgot or did not read what I wrote above, again, Clinton started at 66%, Bush at 57%. Bush went up every year, and was still on his way up in your little mid 00s utopia! If Clinton started at 57%, that is exactly where it would have been in 1996. However, he started higher, thanks to your heroes in the GOP. Midway through the Clinton presidency, the debt% GDP is stable, while midway through Bush, it has increased 7 percentage points.
Means EVERYTHING because crises is typically what causes debt as a percentage of GDP to rise. Since you obviously have not looked at the history of this, look at what happened during the Civil War and World War II to the ratio. Are you going to put all the blame on the rise of debt as a percentage of GDP during the Civil War on Abraham Lincoln or on Roosoevelt during World War II, which saw the worst Debt as a percentage of GDP ratio in the nations history?
I know the numbers for each year. But again, if your going to accurately assess the decade or each presidency, you MUST look at each year, not just the first year and the last year and make a wild extrapolation based on that.
Better than the 1930s, sure. Worst since, put together, who knows, I never claimed that. People were living well- the standard of living in the US mostly increases over time, so of course. Remember, again, the only economically "good" part of the decade 04-06 featured false assurances through borrowed money, public and private. This bubble burst as expected, and left us with the very sour end to the decade. Was it anywhere near as good as the 90s, as you are obsessed with claiming? NO. People were saving more in the 90s, borrowing less and actually were seeing their paychecks increase.
Well, others in this thread have claimed that it was the worse decade since the 1930s which is totally false.
Again look at the average unemployment rate, inflation rate, poverty rate, GDP growth rate, and debt as a percentage of GDP and there is very little difference at all between the 00s and 90s. With some of the indicators, the 00s were better, but not by much. With some of the indicators, the 90s were better but not by much.
Again, when you just look at the median house hold income in 2000 VS 2008, your only getting part of the story.
Oh and 2004 to 2006 was NOT the only good economic part of the decade. The unemployment rate was below 5% from December 2005 through February 2008!!!!!!!!
Yes, but these jobs were at lower wages, and being created at lower rates than other decades. 2007 was a year where unemployment and poverty were increasing.
Not really with unemployment:
2007
January 4.6%
February 4.5%
March 4.4%
April 4.5%
May 4.4%
June 4.6%
July 4.6%
August 4.6%
September 4.7%
October 4.7%
November 4.7%
December 4.9%
2008
January 4.9%
February 4.8%
Lets see Obama have a year as good as 2007 in terms of the unemployment rate.
Again, low by historical standards, but both indicators were at record lows in 2000, and were, in 2007 and 2008, making a dramatic acceleration upward.
2000 is NOT 2006 or 2007. The unemployment rate increased in 2001 and 2002, and then it dropped under BUSH. Again, your 6 years away from when Clinton left office and to attribute anything GOOD that happened during the Bush years to Clinton is laughably absurd and obviously biased.
What is your point? Again, look where he started and ended!
Its not where you start and where you end, its the total average of everything you did during your time in office, or what happened during the decade. You don't assess an employee or student by only looking at the first day on the job or in class and the last day on the job or in class.
Look at how the end of the decade proved the middle of it was unsustainable. I never denied that we had 5% unemployment for a good amount of time under Bush.
Well, your making a generalization that could be said about any boom or bust period. The good times are always unsustainable to someone.
Does not mean the policies he was pursuing were good or sustainable. He ended with the worst economy since the Depression, and we were losing jobs at a historically fast rate when he handed it over to Obama.
The topic of this thread is the level of burden suffered by the country and its people over the past decade. The impact each President had on conditions is more debatable and actually not the subject of the thread.
Every month of the decade has to be looked at. You can't cherry pick the first month and last month and make any kind of an accurate assessment of the decade just based on those two months.
Most of recovery is automatic. The deeper the recession, the stronger the recovery(in terms of GDP growth rate) regardless of who is in office. As for unemployment, it always keeps rising after a recession has officially ended(this recession was over last summer). So of course, Obama will not have unemployment back down to 5% by the end of this year, he never claimed he would. No sane person looking at this recession, liberal, conservative or otherwise, would make this claim. Plus, recessions that take down the financial system have taken historically longer to recover from. This is such a recession. Would not matter what Obama did, 5% unemployment by the end of this year would be completely impossible. If we had done what the Republicans wanted to do(nothing), then we would be looking at 12-14% unemployment at end of 2010 according to conservative economist Mark Zandi.
Well if most of the recovery is automatic then your simply claiming that it does not matter what Bush or Obama does during their respective recovery periods. Then, a few lines down, you contradict this by saying that if it were not for Obama's policies over the past year, unemployment would be 14% rather than 10%? No recovery is automatic and if it was, the government would not need to do anything.
This was bad, but nowhere near the level of the depression. I never said that it took less than 15 years to recover from the depression. It would have taken much longer, but even that would have worked its way through eventually. Of course, letting it do so would have been dumb as we would have all been dead. The Depression ended when it did because of World War II and World War II only.
Basically, when things went well during the Bush years, it was automaticly going to happen. Anything that went wrong was all his fault. When things were down during the Clinton years, not his fault. When things were up, all do to him. I suppose this logic will continue for Obama as well.
Again, government does have an important role to play in the economy. Recovery is not automatic. The Bush administration did many things well enough to achieve some of the best numbers on the key economic indicators in the nations history. You can't dismiss that by claiming it was "automatic". Just whatever recovery we see under Obama is certainly not going to be considered as "automatic" and not a consequence of Obama's policies.
What I did say was the recovery from the mild 2001 recession would have happened no matter who was in office, and that is 100% true. Any recession we have had recently has bounced back to recovery quickly, regardless of who was President or what policies they pursued. Nixon and GHW Bush raised taxes and we recovered, Truman and Bush II cut taxes and we recovered, you get the idea. From a small recession like 2001, yes, you can be rest assured of a quick, strong bounce back! Even the 1982 deep recession bounced back to strong real growth by 1983 and 84. Obama is seeing exactly the same kind of recovery as Reagan- strong real growth, unemployment remaining high.
Again, there are multiple factors which impact the economy of which government policies is one. Nothing is certain at all! Ever hear of Jimmy Carter? Bush Sr. raised taxes prior to the start of the recession.
Growth was strong in 1983 and 1984, but unemployment was still relatively high. You can't go around claiming that Bush can't take credit for anything that happened good from an economic standpoing, but is responsible for anything bad that happened. Thats just laughably absurd, but its what you have spent the past couple of post attempting to prove.
Already addressed the debt%. It was stable in the first 4 years. By the time 1996 rolled around, Clinton had cut the deficit 4 straight years, 10 Million jobs had been created(more than Bush I by far), lowest misery index in 25 years, record number of small businesses had been started. Unemployment down 1.5 percentage points. Shall I continue? Clinton got re elected in 1996, when the country was trending Republican, based on his economic record. You are pathetic if you are going to stick to this claim.
Well guess what, Bush got re-elected as well in 2004, a good part of it having to do with his economic record. Debt as a percentage of GDP increased EVERY year of Clintons first four years! The deficit is not the debt by the way. Bush has had some of the lowest misery index's on record as well.
Again, this thread is about this being called the decade from hell, the worst times since the 1930s. It clearly was not based on the factual economic indicators. In many ways, it was better than the 1990s, especially when you look at the average poverty rate. You can attempt to rob Bush of any and all credit for that, but the fact that those were the conditions during the decade is a fact that cannot be disputed.
Yes, but look at the overall trends of the 2. The only one oversimplifying things is you.
I'm not the one only looking at data from just 2 months or 2 years. I'm looking at the full 120 months or 10 years. Your not! Thats why your the one oversimplifying things!
Great, never denied it. Does not tell the whole story, it is simply you cherry picking a time period! You have the concept of cherry picking backwards if you accuse me of it.
You deny it by refusing to consider any economic data that occured outside of the year 2000 or the year 2009. No one here would even know or be discussing the 27 consecutive months of unemployment being below 5% if I had not brought it up. Its data no one gets to see when they simply look at your generalization of the decade based on just figures from 2000 and 2009. Thats why its cherry picking. Cherry picking is when you don't consider other data. The 27 consecutive months of unemployment below 5% which gets considered when I use my averages of all the data throughout the decade, but gets MISSED when we only look at 2000 and 2009 like your doing.
61% in a 2009 Gallup Poll. Get up to date! Plus, everyone has a stake in the market, because it reflects how many of our employers and banks are doing. If the stock market sucks, less people want products, less people are employed, less loans are given out for capital investment and economic expansion, etc.
Stock Owners More Positive About Market in Coming Year
Does not matter. The determining factors for marking a recession involve GDP. The misery index attempting to measure the burden on Americans involves inflation and unemployment. The Stock Market has an impact, but its not what is used to assess the level of burden on the country or standard of living. The UNDP does not use any stock values in determining a country's standard of living.
Ask anyone, they worry about retirement. Its not a luxury, its a necessity as people age and their health declines. What planet do you live on?
Well, if its a necessity, why is it largely not present in US or any society before 1930? Anyone can see this by looking at the publically available census records from 1790 and to 1930 which list age and employment status. People can get sick or have a health decline at any age. People can also work far beyond the age that people lable as being retirement age. Current statistics show that many people are working beyond 65 which disproves the claim that its a necessity as one ages. Again, your assuming way to much here.
I was not saying the engineer, business owner, professor or President are the only ones who suffer, just pointing out the wide variety of people who care about the stock market! You cant see that?
Relative to what other people have to go through, I would not call that suffering. The people you listed are generally above the median household income point. Yes, they loss some money in the stock market, but they still have their healthcare, and money for food, water, shelter, the basic necessities, while the people who are living pay check to pay check just to survive until the next week may have lost their job and have relatively nothing compared to your engineer, business owner or professor who's only worry is about how they will pay for some extended retirement period that is decades away.
You never read about the interconnectedness of the economy? If the stock market takes a plunge, it is simply a reaction to other economic indicators. Less demand for everything else, reflected in the stock market, equals less demand for the services of the janitor, the ditch digger and the retail clerk.
If you think the montly unemployment rate and the annual poverty rate can be directly coralated with the stock market, post the numbers!
People living paycheck to paycheck still think about retirement, you are naive to think otherwise.
You are naive to think that someone who is trying to survive over the next week is worried about whether or not they can retire in 3 or 4 decades. The vast majority of people are focused on TODAY, not what may or may not happen decades from now.
Most Americans retire or plan on it, its not a luxury anymore, hasnt been for quite some time! Maybe they work after retirement, but that is for a lower income.
It is only over the last several decades the number of Americans that retire or plan too has increased. Again, you will not find very many people listed as retired on the latest publically available census from 1930.
Many average Americans, yes janitors and retail people included here, have pensions or 401 K accounts that are invested in the stock market.
The majority do not.
My point stands, you can not brush off a stock market collapse as having anything but negative consequences for people from all income brackets. The stock market, again, is not some vacumn, it is a reflection of actual economic conditions!!
Then please post the data that precisely corallates the stock market with the monthly unemployment rate and the annual poverty rate.
Again, its two negative quarters of GDP growth that defines a recession, NOT a drop in the stock market. Its unemployment + inflation which defines the misery index, NOT the stock market level!
Plus, given the fact that job growth was slow(did not even keep up with population growth), incomes were falling and poverty rates were rising, this was not a good decade for the ditch digger, the retail clerk or the janitor.
The average poverty rate, average unemployment rate, average inflation rate, and average GDP growth rate is what determines whether this decade was good or bad for many people on the bottom. They are the ones that are most impacted by such numbers. The fact of the matter is, the past decade saw one of the lowest average poverty rates of any decade in US HISTORY. Its an indisputable fact!
And those numbers were far from great this decade. Main street had a much better decade in the 1990s. There were multiple stories on this even during your 2004-2006 utopia. The stock market, as a reflection of these same conditions(or inputs that lead to them) also can tell us how Main Street is doing. Is Main street employed, are their pensions safe, can they save for college, are our schools funded, can Main street's residents get loans from banks? Can the college afford to give the steelworker's kid a break on tuition? Wall Street doing well does not mean Main street is, not by a long shot, but Wall Street tanking can't be anything but NEGATIVE for Main Street.
Please, Please, have the facts when you challenge me!
Well, here are the average economic indicators during the Bush and Clinton years which covers much of the decades in question. Bush did better on average Debt as a percentage of GDP and the average Poverty rate. Clinton did a little better on GDP growth, unemployment and inflation. The figures on unemployment and inflation were very close.
Again, what is the topic of this thread. That this past decade was the "decade from hell", the worst decade since the 1930s. The facts below indicate that it was NOT!
Oh, and as for the college, consider the fact that 40% of the population never goes. 60% do, but only half graduate. Most of the population does not actually have a four year degree although, the number who do is actually higher at the end of this decade, than in any prior decade in history!
The Average National Federal Debt as a percentage of GDP:
Clinton Years 64.40%
Bush Years 63.62%
Average GDP growth rate:
Clinton Years 5.4%
Bush Years 4.8%
Average Annual Poverty Rate:
Clinton Years 13.3%
Bush Years 12.5%
Average Annual Unemployment Rate:
Clinton Years 5.21%
Bush Years 5.27%
Average Annual Inflation Rate:
Clinton Years 2.60%
Bush Years 2.69%