It's not much of a surprise, though unfortunately it does once again raise the question of why Obama and the rest of Washington are saying the course with the same old broken system. To allow the architects of this lost decade to continue holding a leadership position and betting the future on Wall Street is a real head scratcher. The Republican policies under Bush exacerbated the poor Clinton (and Robert Rubin) decisions to let business do whatever it wanted. Let Obama and Democrats in Congress continue this insanity but don't expect me or many others on the left to go along with it. Enough is enough.
There has been zero net job creation since December 1999. No previous decade going back to the 1940s had job growth of less than 20 percent. Economic output rose at its slowest rate of any decade since the 1930s as well.
Middle-income households made less in 2008, when adjusted for inflation, than they did in 1999 -- and the number is sure to have declined further during a difficult 2009. The Aughts were the first decade of falling median incomes since figures were first compiled in the 1960s.
And the net worth of American households -- the value of their houses, retirement funds and other assets minus debts -- has also declined when adjusted for inflation, compared with sharp gains in every previous decade since data were initially collected in the 1950s.
