As with most comparisons of the SCoaMF to the Gipper, the SCoaMF doesn’t come off too well.
One Year Later, Another Look at Obamanomics vs. Reaganomics
By Dan Mitchell
On this day last year, I posted two charts that I developed using the Minneapolis Federal Reserve Bank’s interactive website.
Those two charts showed that the current recovery was very weak compared to the boom of the early 1980s.
But perhaps that was an unfair comparison. Maybe the Reagan recovery started strong and then hit a wall. Or maybe the Obama recovery was the economic equivalent of a late bloomer.
So let’s look at the same charts, but add an extra year of data. Does it make a difference?
Meh…not so much.
Mr. Mitchell is entirely too kind.
Let’s start with the GDP data. The comparison is striking. Under Reagan’s policies, the economy skyrocketed. Heck, the chart prepared by the Minneapolis Fed doesn’t even go high enough to show how well the economy performed during the 1980s.
Under Obama’s policies, by contrast, we’ve just barely gotten back to where we were when the recession began. Unlike past recessions, we haven’t enjoyed a strong bounce. And this means we haven’t recovered the output that was lost during the downturn.
This is a damning indictment of Obamanomics.
Indeed it is. It is also a nearly perfect example of stagnation.
Unfortunately, the jobs chart is probably even more discouraging. As you can see, employment is still far below where it started.
This is in stark contrast to the jobs boom during the Reagan years.
So what does this mean? How do we measure the human cost of the foregone growth and jobs that haven’t been created?
It means that we, the electorate, made a mistake; a mistake which we must now redress.
Hat Tip: Glenn “Instapundit” Reynolds, who saw no need to comment.
