Quite a few news articles already on the release of the Federal Reserve Bulletin for June 2012, titled "Changes in U.S. Family Finances from 2007 to 2010: Evidence from the Survey of Consumer Finances" and in the Washington Post article discussing the Fed report, the headline quote, "Recovery from the so-called Great Recession has also been particularly slow" is saved for the very last sentence, even though it is on page 4 of the 80 page PDF, which will be embedded below.
From 2007 to 2010, American families' wealth plunged by 39 percent, setting Americans back 20 years, to 1992.
Bloomberg Businessweek explains:
The Great Recession shrank Americans' wealth so much that in 2010 median family net worth was no more than it had been in 1992 after adjusting for inflation, the Federal Reserve reported Monday.
Median net worth declined from $126,400 in 2007 to $77,300 in 2010, a Fed survey of family finances found. The median marks the point where half had more and half had less. The recession officially began in December 2007 and ended in June 2009.
Net worth is the value of assets like homes, bank accounts and stocks, minus debts like mortgages and credit cards
Obama is not responsible for the recession, but from the official end of the recession in June 2009, the recovery became Obama's responsibility and by all accounts and according to the Fed report, it has been "particularly slow" despite an $800 plus billion so-called "stimulus" package which instead of kick starting a recovery, did nothing more than slap a tiny band-aid on a gaping wound.
Clayton Cramer points out that Democrats "had control of both houses of Congress from January of 2007 to January of 2011, the Senate from January of 2007 to the present, and the White House since January of 2009--and they still can't fix this economy."
Bush doesn't get a free pass. Still, it is a fact that the last two years of his presidency, 2007-2009, Democrats held the purse strings by controlling Congress.
2009- Flashback to Nancy Pelosi's famous First 100 days of Obama's presidency:
Pelosi, however, praised the accomplishments of the past three months, noting that Congress, which began its term before the inauguration, has already passed its 100-day mark. April 29 marks President Obama's 100th day in office.The deficit rose and continued to rise. Unemployment topped 8 percent and is still over 8 percent.
"The three pillars of the president's budget -- education, energy and health care -- have already been advanced down the field to a significant extent in the first three months," Pelosi said at her news conference.
"As we did that, we put ourselves on a path of taking the deficit down, increasing the number of jobs, lowering the deficit, as I said, and opening up government to much more transparency," she said.
In fact, Pelosi, Obama and Democrats failed so miserably to accomplish any of what she was quoted as asserting, that the 2010 midterm elections saw the largest turnover over of Democrats seats to Republicans, in over 70 years.
In January 2011, Republicans took control of the House of Representatives and the purse, and saw substantial gains in the Senate although the Senate is still controlled by Democrats, led by Harry Reid, but they no longer have the power to jam their liberal agenda though.
Back to Bloomberg Businessweek:
...A separate survey the Fed released last week showed that total family net worth climbed 4.7 percent in the January-March quarter to $62.9 trillion, about 28 percent above its recession low. The increase was fueled by stock market gains.
We can blame who we will on whoever we want for the recession.
The "particularly slow recovery" from June 2009 until January 2011 before Republicans took the House and took control of the purse strings...... Obama's and Democrats' policies.
Fed Wealth Report