According to First Lady Michelle Obama, appearing on Pablo Sato’s show on WPGC 95.5 in Washington, D.C., “we are seeing right now that we are in the midst of a huge recovery. Right? Because of what this president has done.” Not only is the recovery huge, Michelle said, it’s so huge that all of his opponents should sit down and shut up: “And when you see all of that truth, it’s hard to understand why are people blocking this? Why are people talking about not raising taxes on wealthy people? Why is it that people don’t want to fight to make sure that veterans have job opportunities?”
In point of fact, this is the weakest recovery in American history. During the Reagan recovery, Americans created 1.114 million jobs – in September 1983 alone. According to the Associated Press – the Obama Associated Press – “The recession that ended three years ago this summer has been followed by the feeblest economic recovery since the Great Depression.” Here’s the key statistic: “America’s gross domestic product — the broadest measure of economic output — grew 6.8 percent from the April-June quarter of 2009 through the same quarter this year, the slowest in the first three years of a postwar recovery. GDP grew an average of 15.5 percent in the first three years of the eight other comebacks analyzed.”
Those magic mortgages that Michelle Obama loves so much have not even come close to reaching the level of the pre-crash era. Investment in housing was up a mere 8 percent between April-June 2009 and August 2012. During other postwar recoveries, according to AP, that average was 34 percent for this point in the recovery.
Apparently Michelle doesn’t know the meaning of the word huge. She’ll soon have to learn the meaning of the phrase “ex-First Lady.”