Soapboxie

14 Facts About Obama's Presidency Most People Don’t Know

Updated on March 5, 2016

President Obama visiting Iowa

Obama's Presidency: The Facts

People have many perceptions of how the US economy or the country as a whole has done in recent years. Depending on your political views, you may think the country is doing exceptionally well or is teetering on the verge of collapse.

Listed below are fourteen objective facts, without interjected opinion, about the state of America under the leadership of President Obama. Every statement is followed up with a link to a reputable source where you can verify the fact for yourself.

1. We've now had 71 straight months of economic expansion.

That’s right: For seventy-one consecutive months, the US economy has gotten progressively better. That includes a new record for consecutive months of private sector job growth. Forbes magazine (which is no fan of President Obama) crunched the numbers and demonstrated how the economic recovery under President Obama has been better in just about every measurable way than the recovery under President Reagan.

Source: Obama Out-Performs Reagan on Jobs, Growth, and Investing; Forbesmagazine.

2. We are currently enjoying the longest period of private sector job creation in American history.

This statistic also comes from the Forbes magazine article listed above. In fact, we've enjoyed 68 straight months of private sector job creation. That is the longest period of job creation since the Department of Labor has been keeping statistics.

Source: Obama’s Claim That Businesses Are in the "Longest Uninterrupted Stretch of Job Creation": The Washington Post.

3. Unemployment has dropped from 10.1% in October of 2009 to 4.9% by early 2016.

Not only has the unemployment rate dropped significantly, but since the recession ended, the US economy has gained over twelve million new jobs. (You can refer to the Forbes article above or check the article below.)

Source: Democratic Presidents Bring It: Obama Shatters Clinton’s Record For Private Sector Job Growth: PoliticusUsa.It is also worth noting that during the 2012 presidential election, Obama's opponent, Mitt Romney, promised to lower the unemployment rate to 6% by the end of 2016. President Obama succeeded at lowering unemployment to under 6% two full years earlier than Romney had promised.

Source : Romney vows to lower unemployment to 6% by the end of 2016: The Hill

4. The stock market continues to set new record highs since President Obama took office.

Since early 2009, there has been a steady upward trend in stock market growth. The Dow Jones Industrial averages reached an all-time high of 18,292 in May, 2015. Since most Americans have 401K retirement investments in the stock market, this growth benefits millions of middle class Americans.

Source: Dow Jones Industrial Average Last 10 Years: Macrotrends.

5. The Federal budget deficit is shrinking. It’s been reduced by two-thirds since 2009.

The $1.4 trillion federal budget deficit that Obama inherited in 2009 was in a large part due to the high rate of unemployment. When millions of people were put out of work in 2008 and 2009, it resulted in far less income taxes and less economic activity to generate federal revenue. As eleven million people have regained employment, there have been billions more tax dollars generated. As a result, the deficit has been shrinking each year. The 2015 deficit was $439 billion, the smallest deficit since 2007, and roughly 70% lower than it was in 2009.

Source: What is the Deficit?: USGovernmentSpending.com.

6. Under President Obama, government spending has increased only 3.3% annually, the lowest rate since Eisenhower was president.

You may have heard critics say that President Obama is spending money wildly and running up our debt. According to this article from Forbes, Obama has increased spending by 1.4% annually, far less than President Reagan (8.7%) or George W. Bush (8.1%). According to a more recent article from the Washington Post, Obama has increased spending 3.3% annually. In either case, Obama has increased spending less than any president since Eisenhower.

Sources: Who Is the Smallest Government Spender Since Eisenhower? Would You Believe It's Barack Obama? Forbes magazine.
The Facts About the Growth of Spending Under Obama: Washington Post.

7. For 95% of American taxpayers, income taxes are as low or lower than they were at almost any point in the last 50 years.

After President Obama took office, thousands of Tea Party members all over the country held rallies protesting Obama’s tax increases. At that time, President Obama had actually passed several tax cuts to stimulate the economy. Most of the Tea Partiers who were protesting had only seen their taxes decrease under Obama, yet polls indicated that most Tea Party members wrongly believed their taxes had gone up.

In fact, the only people whose income taxes have gone up during Obama’s presidency are those making $400,000 per year or more. That's less than 2% of the population. Today, for the vast majority of people, tax rates are lower than or exactly where they were when Obama first took office. The article below from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities explains this in greater detail.

Source: Federal Income Taxes on Middle-Income Families Remain Near Historic Lows, Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.

8. Dependence on foreign oil has shrunk due to record domestic oil production and improved fuel efficiency standards.

While some claim that oil production has declined under President Obama, the truth is just the opposite. Oil production has reached record highs. The United States now produces so much oil that we export more oil and gasoline than we import.

Source: IndexMundi.

9. At least 18 million more Americans now have health insurance than before.

Depending on whose numbers you use, anywhere from 12 to 18 million Americans acquired health insurance due to the Affordable Care Act. Now that those millions of Americans have insurance, the rest of us are no longer on the hook to pay for their healthcare when they get sick. This saves the American people billions of dollars in the long run.

Source: Obamacare Helped Up to 10 Million Get Insurance, Gallup Finds: NBC News.

10. The Affordable Care Act has added years to the life of Medicare.

The Medicare trust fund had been on course to run out of money by the end of 2016. But due to cost savings from the Affordable Care Act and lower healthcare expenses, Medicare’s trust fund will now remain stable until the year 2030 without cutting benefits.

Source: Medicare, Social Security Disability Fund Headed in Different Directions;The Wall Street Journal.

11. Since passage of the Affordable Care Act, we are seeing the slowest rate of increase in healthcare costs since 1960.

Contrary to the Republican predictions, healthcare costs have increased at a much slower pace since the passage of the ACA.

Source: Trends in Health Care Cost Growth and the Role of the Affordable Care Act; White House Report.

12. We currently have fewer soldiers, sailors, and airmen in war zones than we did at any time in the last 12 years.

With the end of the Iraq war and the steady withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan, we have fewer people in war zones now than we did at any time since 2002.

13. There have been zero successful attacks by al Qaeda on US soil since Obama became president.

Despite Dick Cheney’s warning that if voters elected a Democrat as president, we’d be “hit again and hit hard” by al Qaeda, we have actually been far safer from terrorist attacks on US soil in recent years than we were under the previous president. There have been several unsuccessful attacks against the US under both Bush and Obama, but under Obama, al Qaeda has been largely unsuccessful in striking the US on our home soil.

Source: Timeline of Al Qaeda Attacks

14. We now successfully catch and deport more illegal immigrants than ever before.

Despite the mythology being spread by President Obama's political opponents about our "open border" with Mexico, the numbers prove that President Obama has turned back and deported more illegal immigrants than any other president.

Politifact checked the claim that President Obama turned away more illegal immigrants than any other president, and they confirmed that under President Obama, the US has turned back or deported an average of 32,886 people per month. That's a far greater rate than any other president in history by far.

Source: Has Barack Obama deported more people than any other president in U.S. history? Tampa Bay Times.

Additional Facts About Economic Gains with Obama's Presidency

Although all of the facts stated above can be confirmed through multiple sources, most Americans are not aware of these positive statistics. I invite you to do your own research and check these facts for yourself.

The truth is, most other presidents would envy President Obama’s record which has flourished despite the fact that he inherited the results of the worst economic crash since the Great Depression.

If you feel particularly ambitious, feel free to research these additional facts:

1. Since Obama became president, our economy has gone from losing 750,000 jobs per month to adding 250,000 jobs per month. That’s a net improvement under Obama of about 1 million jobs per month!
2. Before Obama became president, our financial system was in ruins and millions of people were at risk of losing their life savings. Now, the financial loopholes have been fixed and we are no longer at risk of another financial collapse.
3. In just 7 years under Obama, there were more than three times as many jobs created as there were in the whole 8 years under George W. Bush.
4. President Obama passed credit card reforms that protect consumers from excessive fees, rate hikes, deceptive marketing, and unreasonable due dates.
5. Thanks to Obamacare, senior citizens have saved billions of dollars on prescription drugs.
6. The Affordable Care Act requires insurance companies to spend at least 80% of collected premiums on healthcare. As a result, millions of Americans have received refunds from their health insurance companies.

Source: Health Insurers Set to Give Out More Obamacare Refunds; Huffington Post Business.

Despite the unprecedented obstructionism and record number of filibusters used by Republicans to kill even the most routine legislation, the fact remains that the American people are profoundly better off today than they were before President Obama took office, in almost every measurable way.

Note From The Author

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