Actual State of the US economy

Yes.

And remember, you heard it here first.

For some, it has drastically improved. We're still waiting for it to trickle down to the rest of us.

By just about every measure, last year was a banner year for the economy. Job creation, economic growth, stock market returns were at highs not seen in a couple of decades. Health care expenses rose at the lowest rate in many years and gas (a major expense for a lot of people and a factor in shipping costs for a lot of products) is down to two dollars a gallon in some places. If anything, the media and much of the political class is ignoring just how much better things have gotten over the last year.

The average weekly wage was $847 nov 13 and was 853 nov 14, and increase of .7%. Inflation was more than double this, so the wages have actually decreased. To make matters worse the wealthy are doing better than everyone else, so the average middle class or working class person did not even get the .7%.

http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.t19.htm

Do you generally conclude that the economy is better when you are bringing home less bacon?

From your link, the wage in Nov '13 was $833.18 (the $847 number was Oct '14) so the increase was 2.4% vs inflation of 1.3% so that is a win. On top of that, if you didn't have a job in 2013 and you have one in 2014, I'm sure you would conclude that the economy is doing better. 2014 is shaping up as the best year for job creation this century and since the third and fourth best years are 2013 and 2012, Obama is now outperforming Reagan in terms of job creation six years into his presidency. (Reagan is generally considered the best job creation President.)

As for the rich doing better, that will always be the case, but at least Obama let some of the Bush tax cuts for the rich expire. That was a decent contributor to the falling budget deficit.

Ya, I used the wrong column. So 2014 was the best year we have seen for wages in awhile. Still, labor has relatively little bargaining power, I have seen several predictions that spring/summer 2015 is when most people will have a decent shot at a meaningful raise for the first time in a long time.

That does not even make sense.....job creation is about where we should have had it three years ago going by past recoveries, the quality of the jobs that this economy is creating is mostly crap as has been the case for a long time, income inequality is the worst it has been in many generations and the pace at which in inequality is getting worse is the worst in has been in many generations, 50 million people rely on foodstamps, Wallstreet almost melted down pour economy and nothing was done to reform it....how in hell is anyone trying to figure out who to cheer? Things suck, just about no one is even thinking about working out our economic problems

The problem is our current batch of representatives don't see a problem. Ask our incoming House and Senate leaders if income inequality is a problem and they will tell you no (or look to blame it on the President.) Ask them if taxes should be higher on the wealthy to support basic needs and eliminate deficit spending and they will tell you absolutely not. Like your gun control thread, we know what to do but we keep electing people who want to do the exact opposite.

income inequality is not even our biggest problem, the general lack of ability of the young to even start their careers and the untenable long term demands upon them to pay ever increasing portions of their wages on taxes to prop up the decimated government accounts is. We are setting on a powder keg here and almost no one seems to notice. I have a feeling that we will after the youth start burning down Europe, they have already taken note of how many of their young are itching to join ISIS.

We are in the beginnings of deflation. How else can you explain lower commodities across the board??? This is not good...

Europe is very close to deflation or in the soup already. Alarm bells are going off.