In November 2007, many pundits expected the upcoming presidential campaign to focus on security and international issues. Bush doesn’t necessarily deserve much blame for the economic collapse, but Democrats haven’t been shy about reminding voters who was in office when it happened.Īll of this presumes that the economy on Election Day next year will resemble the one we see today, but that’s far from a safe assumption. Then there’s the small matter of the financial crisis, which struck on Bush’s watch and sparked the worst recession since the Great Depression. The middle class didn’t exactly thrive under the last Republican president median household income rose sharply in the 1990s but was stagnant in the 2000s, when George W. Marco Rubio said the American dream is “slipping away.” John Kasich promised to “get this economy moving again.” And Bush, who has based his campaign in part on a pledge to return the country to 4 percent annual growth, asked viewers to “imagine a country where people are lifted out of poverty again.”īut Republicans face their own delicate dance. At last month’s CNBC debate, which focused on economic issues, candidate after candidate blamed Obama and the Democrats for stagnant wages, persistent inequality and lackluster economic growth. That dissatisfaction is driven by a harsh reality: Six-plus years after the recession officially ended, there has been no meaningful recovery in household income. In a recent Wall Street Journal poll, just 47 percent of Democrats - and only 4 percent of Republicans - reported being “cautiously optimistic” about the economy. Americans remain uneasy about the economy, even if they have become more sanguine in recent years. There’s no mystery about why Democrats are being cautious. Sanders takes every opportunity to rail against an economy that benefits primarily “millionaires and billionaires.” And though Hillary Clinton is more measured, she has sounded similar notes in a major economic speech over the summer, she said the economy “still isn’t delivering” for ordinary Americans. All of that should work to the advantage of the party that has controlled the White House for the past eight years.īut Democrats haven’t seemed eager to embrace Obama’s legacy. Corporate profits and financial markets have both rebounded strongly from their recession-era lows, and overall economic output has been resilient in the face of challenges domestic and foreign. The unemployment rate has fallen to 5 percent, from 7.8 percent when Obama took office in 2009 and a high of 10 percent that same year, and job growth has been consistently strong. On the one hand, the economy has improved dramatically under President Obama. Unless things change significantly in the next 12 months, the economy is neither good enough nor bad enough to provide either side with a completely clean narrative. In polls, voters consistently rank the economy as their top concern, and candidates from Jeb Bush to Bernie Sanders have put dollars and cents at the center of their campaigns.īut far from offering a clear advantage to one party, the economy offers risks and opportunities for all the candidates. After two straight elections dominated by economic issues, 2016 is shaping up to be … another election dominated by economic issues.
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