FAMILY INCOMES TELL A GRIM STORY – AT 11:16 A.M. ET:   In a way, this is the real bottom line:   Where are family incomes today compared to the past?  The picture is not encouraging.  From IBD: 

Back in January, President Obama was boasting that the economy had finally turned a corner. He called 2014 a "breakthrough year for America," and said "our economy is growing and creating jobs at the fastest pace since 1999." He went on to credit his "middle class economics" for producing these gains.

The latest income data, however, don't show anything like what Obama was describing. Real median family income fell in March, to $54,203, back to where it was in September 2009.

Sentier Research — which uses Census data to compile monthly income statistics — found that family incomes plummeted more after the recession than during the recession itself, bottoming out in mid-2011.

After that, family incomes started to make a painfully slow climb. But even now, nearly six years after the recession ended, they are still 5% below where they stood at the previous peak in early 2008, just as the recession was starting. At the current pace, it will take several more years for family incomes to reach that peak again.

Another way to look at it. Under President George W. Bush, this income measure averaged $56,081 — despite his presiding over two recessions. That's 6% higher than the average under Obama and 3.5% above the latest March figure.

If this constitutes a "breakthrough year" for this administration, that isn't saying much for how it measures success.

COMMENT:  It strikes me that most economic recoveries are "felt," not just measured.  People can feel recovery and success around them.  The country still seems very hesitant about the economy.  We just haven't come back, and job creation appears to center on jobs that few people really aspire to. 

I'm not so sure the people of this country will ever feel optimistic about the economy unless we start making things again.   Services, however important, just don't provide the kind of economic muscle we once had.  When FDR spoke about the United States being the "arsenal of democracy," he was referring to our vast manufacturing and shipbuilding industries. 

April 25,  2015