Last week, President Barack Obama made a seventh appearance on Comedy Central's "The Daily Show," his last with Jon Stewart as its host. At one point in the extended interview posted online, Obama claimed that "the economy, by every metric, is better than when I came into office," prompting the fact-checking website PolitiFact to do some investigating and conclude that Obama's claim is "Mostly False."
"That claim is too sweeping. Certain measures of wages and income, the poverty rate and the duration of unemployment are all worse now than they were when Obama" came into office, PolitiFact said.
When only looking at three main statistics considered to be important measures of economic health - gross domestic product, unemployment rate and employment level - Obama's claim largely holds up, PolitiFact said.
Inflation-adjusted gross domestic product per capita has gone up 16 percent since Obama took office, from $47,002 in 2009 to $54,630 in 2014, according to data from The World Bank.
The official unemployment went from 7.8 percent in January 2009 to a peak of 10 percent in October 2009, before falling to 5.3 percent by June 2015, a drop in unemployment of almost one-third since Obama became president.
The employment level fell from about 134 million in January 2009 to 129.6 million in February 2010, but by June 2015, it had rebounded to 141.8 million, an increase in jobs of nearly 6 percent during Obama's tenure.
Now on to other important economic metrics that do not support Obama's claim that "the economy, by every metric, is better than when I came into office."
Between the first quarter of 2009 and the first quarter of 2015, PolitiFact found that the real median weekly earnings for full-time wage and salary workers "fell from $348 to $344, a decline of about 1 percent."
"Comparing the second quarter of 2009 and the second quarter of 2015, weekly earnings fell from $342 to $337, a decline of about 1.4 percent," PolitiFact said.
According to the U.S. Census Bureau, inflation-adjusted median household income fell about 4 percent, from $54,059 in 2009 to $51,939 in 2013.
The number of people living in poverty increased by about 1.3 percent from March 2009, when 13.2 percent of Americans were living in poverty, to March 2014, when 14.5 percent were living in poverty, according to Census Bureau data.
The median number of weeks an unemployed person remained unemployed also rose during Obama's time in office. In January 2009, half of all unemployed Americans had been without work for 10.7 weeks. That number peaked at 25.2 weeks in June 2010, and by June 2015, it had decreased to 11.3 weeks, still higher than it was when Obama took office.
The last two metrics PolitiFact considered were the civilian labor force participation rate and the number of people on food stamps:
"Civilian labor force participation rate. This is the percentage of people either working or looking for work, divided by the civilian, noninstitutionalized population. In January 2009, this stood at 65.7 percent, but by June 2015, it had fallen to 62.6 percent. The caution here is that this statistic has been affected by the increasing rate of retirements due to the aging of the Baby Boomers. However, most economists say that the weak recovery has played at least some role in this decline.
Number of people on food stamps. The number of recipients has risen from 33.5 million in 2009 to 46.5 million in 2014, an increase of 39 percent. What is hard to say is how much comes from expanded accessibility rules and how much comes from rising economic need."
So while Obama's statement "contains an element of truth," it also "ignores facts that would give a different impression," therefore, according to PolitiFact, it deserves a "Mostly False" rating.
