Harvard Crushes The “Obama Recovery” Farce With 9 Simple Charts

Tyler Durden's picture

A couple of months back we posted 9 charts that, at least in our minds, debunked the myth of the “Obama Recovery” despite suggestions from the administration that any such efforts were just a futile attempt at “peddling fiction” (our original post: “These Are The 9 Zero Hedge Charts Showing “Obama’s Recovery” That Angered The Washington Post“).

Turns out that Harvard likes to dabble in “fiction peddling” as well:

Harvard

 

In a recent study entitled “Problems Unsolved and a Nation Divided” (study can be viewed in its entirety at the end of this post), Harvard University points out that, despite claims of an “Obama Recovery,” in fact, the U.S. economy has continued to deteriorate in the aftermath of the “great recession.”  Among other things, Harvard attributes the economic deterioration to a “lack of economic strategy, especially at the federal level” and a “political system was once the envy of many nations” but has now “become our greatest liability.”  Below are a couple of the key conclusions:

America’s economic performance peaked in the late 1990s, and erosion in crucial economic indicators such as the rate of economic growth, productivity growth, job growth, and investment began well before the Great Recession.

 

Workforce participation, the proportion of Americans in the productive workforce, peaked in 1997. With fewer working-age men and women in the workforce, per-capita income for the U.S. is reduced.

 

Median real household income has declined since 1999, with incomes stagnating across virtually all income levels. Despite a welcome jump in 2015, median household income remains below the peak attained in 1999, 17 years ago. Moreover, stagnating income and limited job prospects have disproportionately affected lower-income and lower-skilled Americans, leading inequality to rise.

Meanwhile, Harvard points out that “pessimism about the trajectory of U.S. competitiveness deepened in 2016” for the first time in 5 years. 

Pessimism about the trajectory of U.S. competitiveness deepened in 2016, for the first time since we started surveying alumni in 2011. Fifty percent of the business leaders surveyed expect U.S. competitiveness to decline in the coming three years, while 30% foresee improvement and 20% no change.

Harvard argues that one of the primary causes of the sustained economic downturn has been a lack of an economic strategy from the federal government which has instead chosen to rely exclusively on accomodative Fed policies.

The U.S. lacks an economic strategy, especially at the federal level. The implicit strategy has been to trust the Federal Reserve to solve our problems through monetary policy.

We assume Chuck Schumer agrees with that characterization…

 

Meanwhile, Harvard points out that the other key affliction of the U.S. economy is a completely broken political system that is “no longer delivering good results for the average American.”

The U.S. political system was once the envy of many nations. Over the last two decades, however, it has become our greatest liability. Americans no longer trust their political leaders, and political polarization has increased dramatically. Americans are increasingly frustrated with the U.S. political system. Independents now account for 42% of Americans, a greater percentage than that of either major party.

 

The political system is no longer delivering good results for the average American. Numerous indicators point to failure to compromise and deliver practical solutions to the nation’s problems. Political polarization has especially made it harder to build consensus on sensible economic policies that address key U.S. weaknesses. It is at the root of our inability to progress on the consensus Eight-Point Plan.

With that, here’s a look at some of our favorite charts.

First, the labor force participation rate has continued to decline after the “great recession” and currently stands at the lowest level since 1982.

Harvard

 

But the total labor participation rate over the past couple of decades has benefited from women entering the work force.  If you just look at male labor force participation the drop off is even more pronounced.  

Harvard

 

The key problem is that job creation has failed to recover to the levels experienced prior to the “great recession.”

Harvard

 

Meanwhile, labor productivity has collapsed.

Harvard

 

And, of course, poor job growth and declining participation rates results in lower real household income.

Harvard

 

Per the chart below, the only counties across the country that have experienced real income growth in recent years has been areas where the economy is dominated by oil productionironically, the industry that Obama has tried hardest to crush (as evidenced by his recent decision to unilaterally halt the construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline).

Harvard

 

Moreover, people in the lowest income brackets, those Obama claims to care most about, have suffered the most under his presidency.

Harvard

 

While stalling in the early 2000’s, entitlement spending has soared under the Obama presidency as investment has declined.

Harvard

 

Meanwhile, the Harvard survey finds that all of Obama’s major policy initiatives were identified as the key reasons for our under-performing economy, including, a health care, high personal income taxes, high corporate taxes and a burdensome regulatory environment.

Harvard

 

And, lastly, this all comes as the American electorate has completely lost all faith in politicians.

Harvard

 

Harvard Study on US Economy Under Obama


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Anonymous
Anonymous

There is no recovery or non recovery, just a new progression towards a different economic situation than we have experienced in past recoveries.

There will never be a recovery for most lower end workers (along with many, many upper end ones) as the current push for “living wage” minimum wage hikes pushes the cost of labor above what the job can support and will spur a rapid movement away from human workers as they are replaced by robotics (which will now be economically feasible compared to higher worker wages for bottom end jobs).

People are becoming obsolete except for the special few with real management and economic manipulation skills that can actually direct and run things.

If you’ve been left out of the current recovery it isn’t because there is no recovery, it’s just that you have become obsolete and are not wanted anymore.

Get used to it.

Jason Calley
Jason Calley

Hey Anonymous! “If you’ve been left out of the current recovery it isn’t because there is no recovery, it’s just that you have become obsolete and are not wanted anymore.”

That word “obsolete” is a bit hazy. Certainly you are correct that a LOT of workers simply have failed to upgrade their skills and thus find themselves unemployed. But while I agree that there are a lot of former workers in that category, I do not think that ALL the unemployed fall into that class. If an economy shifts to favor cheating, fraud and lying, then an honest man may be said to be “obsolete”. Likewise, when economies shift to favor fiat currency, central banking, rigged markets and centralized control, employees who produce actual items of value may be superseded by other workers who are willing to produce more profit through legalized fraud.

kokoda - Les Deplorables
kokoda - Les Deplorables

All the regulars on TBP are well aware of the ‘fictional recovery’ without the need for Harvard to provide charts.

TJF
TJF

The content of the Harvard report is not anything that we all didn’t already know. The real story here is why has Harvard published it now when they typically seem to fall on the side of propping up the house of cards and now they have joined the children in the crowd pointing out that the emperor has no clothes.

Why the change? That is the interesting, but unanswered question.

IndenturedServant

Agree that we all know the recovery mantra is complete bullshit. We never had a recession either. That was and is still just the start of the Greater Depression which when coupled with education, I call The Great Regression.

Anywho, the biggest take away from this article for me was this:

“The U.S. lacks an economic strategy, especially at the federal level. The implicit strategy has been to trust the Federal Reserve to solve our problems through monetary policy.”

So, the strategy is to TRUST a foreign owned, private bank that the people and the government have absolutely NO FUCKING CONTROL OVER to SOLVE our problems. Not that I didn’t already know this but YOU HAVE GOT TO BE FUCKING KIDDING ME!!!

I don’t know the ins and outs of such things so can ANYONE explain to me WHY we cannot just REVOKE their charter? I’m assuming it falls along the lines of “too big to fail” or “too important to prosecute” or some such horseshit!

Are there forums where libertarian leaning lawyers get together to argue possible legal avenues for fixing our problems? It seems to me that much of the unraveling will have to be done by legal means and surely not every lawyer is a leftist piece of shit right? Lawyers are huge part of the problem so I assume I’ve answered my own question.

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