We Blame George W. Obama

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Jay Cost writing for the Wall Street Journal online:

The Politics of Distrust

What explains the weird unpredictability of the 2016 presidential race? 

An anemic economy that has Americans questioning incumbents, doubting experts and worrying about their own prospects


Since the birth of the modern two-party system in the 1830s, Americans have regularly voted their pocketbooks.

For roughly a half century after World War II, the U.S. economy was like Goldilocks.

Economic growth wasn’t as vigorous as it had been between the Civil War and the Great Depression, but it still averaged an impressive 3.6% a year...

But the picture has darkened since the start of the new millennium.

The recession of 2001 was mild, but the growth that followed it was lackluster.

The recovery from the Great Recession has been weaker still.

All told, the average annual growth rate over the last 14 years has been less than half of its previous postwar average—an anemic 1.7%.

Even the stagflation of the 1970s wasn’t nearly so bad, and it was bookended by strong growth in the 1960s and 1980s.

This difference between 3.7% and 1.7% may not sound like much, but it implies trillions of dollars in unrealized growth.

The middle class has felt its absence keenly.

Average real wages and salaries for private-sector workers have barely improved over the last decade.

And the Census Bureau recently noted that the median American male worker has seen no real wage growth in 40 years.

The slowdown has hit the working class especially hard.

The employment level for those without college degrees has fallen much faster than for those with colleges degrees, and job losses have been particularly acute in manufacturing and construction.

All this suggests an economic bifurcation reminiscent of “A Tale of Two Cities”: Those on the higher end of the socioeconomic scale are doing all right, but those on the lower end cannot get the sorts of jobs that let prior generations rise into the middle class...

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Link: http://www.wsj.com/articles/the-politics-of-distrust-1445015969