Lately, I’ve been curious about where we are and where we’re headed. I thought it’d be fun to compare today with January, 2009, but also with November, 2008, since that’s when so many of you decided it was a good idea to elect a know-nothing ideologue as President of the United States.
So, are you better off than you were four years ago? Let’s go to the tape.
Real Estate:
National Median Home Value (inflation adjusted $)
Now | January, 2009 | November, 2008 |
$157,000 | $178,914 | $191,975 |
Note that the peek median home value was $279,001 in Q2/2006, and the current value of $157,000 is the bottom.
Stocks (DJIA):
Now | January, 23, 2009 | November 7, 2008 |
Ok, gotta be liking that if you have a lot of money tied up in the stock market.
But is it real, or is it fake? DJIA isn’t indexed against anything. Has your stock value gone up, or has the value of your dollar just gone down?
Some people like to look at the Dow vs. Gold. This is the DJIA represented in ounces of gold.
Now | January, 2009 | November, 2008 |
So, the value of the Dow vs. gold continues to decline. Lest anyone accuse me of cherry picking data to make President Barack Obama (D-USA) look bad, it’s worth pointing out that the Dow vs. gold index has been in near steady decline since late 1999, when it peaked at about 42 ounces.
Some people criticize the Dow vs. gold index. I happen to like it, but perhaps the Dow vs. inflation is better
Now | January 23, 2009 | November 7, 2008 |
12,918.99 | 8,379.25 | 9,423.67 |
Inflation has been relatively under control (at least the way it’s measured today) over the last few years, and the Dow has made a 4,000 point leap. So, even inflation indexed, it looks pretty good. Ok, so one check mark in Obama’s favor.
Price of Gas:
Now | January 19, 2009 | November 3, 2008 |
Well, that speaks for itself.
Jobs:
Numbers are from reports released in April, 2012, February, 2009, and November, 2008. I used the “not seasonally adjusted” section, because I think when you’re talking about things like workforce participation and number of employed persons that it’s wrong to use anything other than absolute values. Also, since I don’t completely understand how the “seasonal adjustments” are calculated, I don’t trust the numbers. The numbers aren’t substantially different using the seasonally adjusted numbers, however.
Now | January, 2009 | November, 2008 | |
Unemployment Rate | 8.4% | 8.5% | 6.1% |
U-6 Unemployment Rate | 14.5% | 13.9% | 11.8% |
Labor Force Participation | 64.2% | 65.4% | 66.1% |
Employment-population ratio | 58.5% | 59.8% | 62.0% |
# Employed | 139,764,000 | 140,436,000 | 145,543,000 |
# Unemployed | 12,904,000 | 13,009,000 | 9,469,000 |
# Not in labor force | 88,288,000 | 81,293,000 | 79,601,000 |
# wanting job | 6,041,000 | 5,866,000 | 4,800,000 |
Median Household income (inflation adjusted) | $51,768 |
Ok, the only numbers on that chart that look like improvement for the President are that unemployment has dropped a whopping .1% from January, 2009 to now, and the number of unemployed persons has fallen 105,000 from January, 2009. Those are not impressive changes and more than offset by the fact that 6,995,000 more people are not counted as part of the work force, and that there are 175,000 more people looking for a job. And the numbers are even worse when you compare to November, 2008, which is when you decided that putting a neophyte with no plan in the White House was a good idea.
I’ll update this post periodically between now and election day. Probably not monthly, but fairly regularly.
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