Americans: Are you better off than you were 4 years ago?

[Adam Jensen]

I don't know what numbers you are looking at.

The official ones

http://www.google.com/publicdata/exp...mployment+rate

[Themius]

Well household income was close to $400k four years ago with my parents have very good jobs and me having a not so bad job with good commission. Lived in an affluent area also had quite a bit of debt... anyway they both lost their jobs, i was on forced hiatus, lost apartments, cars, plus a few investments. So very very far from where we were very very unhappy as family members we've helped who are doing quite well don't lift a finger to aid when we did for them in the past.

I am back working though I have lost motivation. I decided to be more ambitious and tried to close an almost 100m construction which would have netted me a little over 200k after tax; however, thanks to the ridiculous arrogance of my client who took it upon himself to curse out people that fell through. Since then I have pretty much been looking for another job.

[DEATHETERNAL]

The official ones

http://www.google.com/publicdata/exp...mployment+rate

The ones that show and predict continued stagnation and under 2% annual GDP growth?

[chazus]

Americans: Are you better off than you were 4 years ago?

Keep this to America since I want to see results from an election perspective.

From these two quotes, this sounds a lot like you asking "Do you think Obama fixed everything?"

That said, yes, I'm better off than I was before, but only due to my own decisions, and nothing to do with the country or government. I think it is utterly delusional to think that elections, and the elected, can make any kind of massive change over a period of a few years.

[Aeriel]

The ones that show and predict continued stagnation and under 2% annual GDP growth?

The ones that ignore long term unemployment, and those individuals who are no longer looking. Oh, and the under-employeed. *raises hand*
However, the overall numbers have stagnated in the last two years after the brief rise when more people began looking again. But, yes, official unemployment numbers are lower than when Obama went into office. However, the number of disaffected youth is higher, which is the much larger, but generally ignored, issue. Sorry to get things off track, but I'm just trying to quantify the data before the thread thoroughly becomes derailed.