"Over the past 40 years, a period in which U.S. GDP per capita more than doubled after adjusting for inflation, the annual earnings of the median prime-aged male has actually fallen by 28 percent. Indeed, males at the middle of the wage distribution now earn about the same as their counterparts in the 1950s! This decline reflects both stagnant wages for men on the job, and the fact that, compared with 1969, three times as many men of working age don’t work at all."
I respect that, but it’s hard for one person to compare his ability to participate as a consumer in the economy from decade to decade, let alone over several decades. But a single voter can compare his progress from year to year or even a few years, which was why Reagan’s questuion , “are you better off than you were 4 years “ago worked. The answer for Obama is emphatically no.