Economy Improving, Obama Campaign Says, But Numbers Prove Otherwise

In a newly released campaign ad, President Barack Obama promised that the economy is on the mend. The only problem is: the numbers say otherwise.

Instead of losing jobs we're creating them, the Obama ad said. Over 4.2 million so far. We're not there yet. It's still too hard for too many. But we're coming back.

But actually, economic indicators on almost every front reveal that our country is worse off today than it was three and a half years ago. When the president took office, the unemployment rate sat at 7.8 percent. Now, it's 8.1 percent, amounting to 450,000 more unemployed Americans today than when Obama first started out.

What about benefits and the debt? There are 14 million more Americans on food stamps since Inauguration Day. As a result of our expanding welfare state, debt has skyrocketed. In just three years, Obama has increased federal debt by more than five trillion dollars -- an increase greater than the total debt accumulation of all 41 preceding presidents combined.

On the health-care frontier, worker insurance cost has risen by almost $1,000. Wasn't Obamacare supposed to solve all of our health-care woes? Gas prices have risen from $1.85 to approximately $3.86. Home values have fallen from $169,700 to $145,400. College tuition has increased by nearly $2,000.

Are these statistics not enough to convince you that Obama's we're coming back claim is nothing more than a disingenuous campaign slogan at best, an outright lie at worst?

You can choose to look at the glass half empty or half full, a time-worn expression tells us. Well, Obama is essentially asking us to look at an entirely empty glass and say it's full to the brim -- a laughable suggestion indeed.

The Obama campaign can distract from the issue by throwing out diversions like same-sex marriage, a contrived War on Women, and Romney's alleged bullying in his younger years. But what he cannot do is cover up the day-to-day economic hardships Americans feel.

No matter how much Obama harps on fringe issues, Americans will vote based on the ones that matter most to them. On Nov. 6, in the privacy of a voting booth, the majority of Americans will not select their candidate based on same-sex marriage, contraception, or Romney's childhood; their vote will be determined by their employment situation, gas prices, home ownership, etc. They will vote on their reality.

They will ask themselves the question Ronald Reagan asked in his final statement of a debate with Jimmy Carter: Are you better off than you were four years ago?

Today, the answer is an emphatic no.

Kayleigh McEnany is a writer and political activist who graduated from the Georgetown University School of Foreign Service and studied at Oxford University. She is the founder of www.RealReaganConservative.com. She writes every Tuesday for the International Business Times.