President Obama said progress is on the ballot this November. This economic data shows he’s right.
Even Donald Trump has admitted the economy does better when Democrats are in charge.
President Obama might not be on the ballot in November, but — as he reminded members at the Congressional Black Caucus gala over the weekend — everything we’ve achieved during his presidency is.
“My name may not be on the ballot, but our progress is on the ballot. Tolerance is on the ballot. Democracy is on the ballot. Justice is on the ballot. Good schools are on the ballot. Ending mass incarceration, that’s on the ballot right now.”
The next election will determine whether we build on our progress — or turn back.
Thanks to President Obama’s leadership, our economy has made significant progress since the greatest economic downturn since the Great Depression.
But don’t just take our word for it. Even Donald Trump has admitted the economy does better when Democrats are in charge:
Now, there is still so much work to do. Too many families are still struggling with the rising costs of health care, child care, and caring for aging parents. Millions are still saddled with student loan debt. These are all of the issues Hillary is fighting to address.
But if you’re still having a tough time believing how far we’ve come, let’s go through some critical findings released last week by the U.S. Census.
Here are just some of the ways we made progress in 2015:
- The middle class got a record-breaking pay raise.
The median household income surged by 5.2% between 2014 and 2015, to $56,516. It’s the largest recorded annual increase since record keeping began in 1967.
2. Poverty fell sharply — the biggest drop in over a decade.
The official poverty rate in 2015 fell from 14.8% to 13.5%, with 3.5 million fewer people living in poverty than in 2014. The 1.2 percentage point decrease from 2014 to 2015 represents the largest annual drop in the poverty rate since 1968.
3. We hit the lowest uninsured rate in history.
Because of the Affordable Care Act, the share of people without health insurance coverage was 9.1% in 2015, a drop from 10.4 percent in 2014. That’s 4 million more Americans with health insurance over the course of a single year.
4. The pay gap between men and women shrunk.
Both men and women working full-time saw their largest earnings increase in years — but women experienced an even larger rise in earnings than men. As a result, the gender pay gap has narrowed with women now making 80 cents for every dollar a man earns.
Despite more jobs, more people at work, and more fair pay — we still have more work to do.
Not only must we defend the progress we’ve made under President Obama, we need to do so much more to make the economy work better for all Americans — not just those at the top.
The choice couldn’t be clearer. A Trump presidency would take the country back to the failed policies that led to the Great Recession. One independent economist — a former advisor to John McCain — actually projected that his policies would plunge us into recession and cost our economy 3.5 million jobs. That same economist found that the economy would create more than 10 million jobs under Hillary’s plans.
Or, as President Obama said in Philadelphia: “If you want higher wages, better benefits, a fairer tax code, a bigger voice for workers, stronger regulations on Wall Street, then you should be voting for Hillary Clinton to stand up for you.”
You can read more here about Hillary’s plan to create good-paying jobs and grow American incomes.
Originally published at www.hillaryclinton.com.
