Obama recovery and wages

When Will the Obama Recovery Start Helping Democrats? by John Cassidy

Last month, in a post about the new census figures, I argued that the stagnation in wages is the defining fact about modern American politics. But it’s also a phenomenon that goes back a long way—to the Reagan years and beyond. Between 1969 and 1980, the median household income barely grew at all. (In inflation-adjusted 2013 dollars, it went from $47,124 to $47,668.) After the steadily rising living standards of the postwar decades, this stagnation came as a big shock to Americans, and it helps to explain the political backlash that Reagan rode to power. For the first two years of his Presidency, the economy was in recession and the median household income actually fell. But from then on, it started to grow. Between 1983 and 1988, when his second term ended, it went from $46,425 to $51,514—an increase of about eleven per cent. 

Rising incomes are what really distinguished the Reagan recovery from the Obama recovery, and that, I suspect, is why the two Presidents enjoyed such different political fortunes. (According to Gallup, Reagan’s average approval rating during his second term was 55.3 per cent. That’s about ten points higher than what Obama has averaged so far in his second term.)