What is the real State of the Union? These 13 graphs show it.

Instead of a speech, President Obama could update the country on the State of the Union through a tweetable infographic.

He won't, but let's be honest, we already know the president is going to say — as every president always does — that the "state of our union is strong."

But how do we know it's true? If Obama did want to go the infographic route, here are 13 graphs he might use, in order from most troubling to strongest.

How things stand now: Americans’ faith in the direction of their country is down to recession-era levels, according to an average of national polls by Real Clear Politics. Sixty-three percent of respondents think the country is on the wrong track and only 29 percent think we’re on the right track.

Interesting article but like many that touch on economics they can’t resist postulating on why. They almost lost me several times but the idea that the Federals printing money had prevented inflation was beyond the beyond.
Have they tried to book travel lately; planes fares and hotels are through the roof. Shipping rates ditto; consumer goods prices have risen but are being masked by ever more desperate sales, smaller portions in the same size packages and shoddier materials.
Those charts are interesting but there is no attention paid to the games that are being played to make the economy look better than it is. Why no chart of the number of part time vs full time workers and number of working age that have work compared to 10 years ago? Should have been right under the unemployment one.
People are more optimistic according to the chart. That doesn’t pass the smell test or the common sense test. More layoffs announced, more store closings more and more without work, dreadful Christmas/Holiday sale numbers and people are optimistic? The social progress chart is labeled a work in progress -a polite way of saying may be hogwash. It appears to measure things related to the decent into socialism otherwise known as the Government “Everwidening Saftey Net” that strangles and infantalizes all it touches; they can keep their social progress..

Missing a chart of the labor participation rate. Showing only the ‘unemployment’ rate, and then offering supposition that the drop is due, in large part, to people simply falling off the roles and exiting the workforce is BS. Demonstrating the increase in the LPR, charted over time, would provide empirical data that removes supposition and guessing.

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