By Bill O'Reilly
While the nation's attention is rightly focused on the ISIS terror threat, a more important issue for all Americans is the economy. And now there is new data from the census bureau. A couple weeks ago speaking in Milwaukee in a Labor Day bash President Obama said this --
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
OBAMA: So -- so I just want everybody to understand because you wouldn't always know it from watching the news. By almost every measure, the American economy and American workers are better off than when I took office.
We're better off by almost every measure.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
O'REILLY: But that turns out not to be true. Let's begin with the most important economic statistic wages. The median household income in the U.S.A. last year was about $52,000 pretty much what it was in 2012.
However, over the past six years, median income in America has fallen eight percent under President Obama. And it's worse for households led by people under the age of 65. This is important. From 2000 to 2013, their income has dropped more than 11 percent. That's brutal because as everybody knows prices have gone up big time on almost everything.
So the end result is that the American middle class continues to get hammered and President Obama's rosy outlook simply has not materialized. On the subject of poverty, it went down slightly last year but the 14.5 percent poverty rate is above the rate when President Obama took office. 2013, slightly more than nine million American families lived in poverty a small increase since 2009. It's about stagnant when President Obama began his term. So there has been no improvement in poverty.
But there is this from the Heritage Foundation. This is interesting. One third of the U.S. population is receiving aid from at least one welfare program. There are 80 so-called means tested welfare programs currently available to low income folks. In some states people on welfare receive more than $40,000 a year in services. That means the poor have purchasing power and 75 percent of them have a car or a truck; 92 percent a microwave oven, 67 percent cable or satellite TV; 50 percent have a personal computer; 43 percent Internet access; 40 percent a wide screen plasma TV and more than 50 percent of poor families with children have video game systems like XBox or Playstation.
So while it's not pleasant to be poor, Americans are not destitute. The major reason the economy is not improving is that business continues to keep the payroll down. There are more people seeking jobs than jobs available. President Obama does not seem to understand that the private marketplace drives wages. The more jobs created, the higher salaries will be because companies need good workers.
For example, if CNN wants to hire a Fox News person, they'll have to pay that Fox News person more money to go over there. Barack Obama is a classic liberal believing the fed should run the private sector. That has failed no matter how the President spins it.
And that's "The Memo".
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