Can Obama save the American middle class?
The September jobs report brought good news on the employment-front; 248,000 jobs were added to the labor market and unemployment dropped to 5.9%. With the midterm elections looming, President Obama came out ahead of the report to tout economic gains made by White House policies.
Speaking to a crowd at Northwestern University the day before the monthly employment numbers came out, the President stated, “It is indisputable that the economy is stronger today than when I took office.” He said “this progress has been hard, but it has been steady and it has been real. And it’s the direct result of the American people’s drive and their determination and their resilience, and it’s also the result of sound decisions made by my administration.”
Jared Bernstein, Senior Fellow at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities and former chief economist and economic advisor to Vice President Joe Biden, notes that while the President choses to highlight economic momentum, he continues to remain circumspect in his approach. “You can definitely see the fingerprints of administration actions as well as those of the Federal Reserve on those developments,” Bernstein says. But, he adds, “it’s also the case that the recovery really hasn’t reached a lot of people still, and the president tends to be pretty careful to make that distinction.”
Bernstein, who worked at the White House at the start of the Obama Adminstration, looks at major economic indicators of recovery such as GDP, employment growth and falling unemployment rates which signal improvement. He says the crucial message on the economy that the President should send ahead of the upcoming elections is that partisan divisions often stand in the way of the White House advancing economic policies that would hasten economic recovery. “Obstructionists in Congress, typically on the conservative side, are blocking [the President], are blocking this progress.” In order to move forward, Bernstein says, the President needs people with whom he can work regardless of their side of the aisle.
Acknowledging that this economic recovery has been the slowest since World War II, Bernstein describes it is a moving target. That has meant that President Obama must attempt to perform a balancing act in his messaging, urging patience but reassuring people we’re on the “right path” economically. Bernstein is also optimistic that after two terms, the President’s economic legacy will be positive on the aggregate economic front. Despite growth however, Bernstein says there are “inequality trends” and structural obstacles blocking middle class Americans from the benefits of this growth, which the president must address.
