Romney Better Off for Not Asking as Economy Improves Since 2009

Sept. 19 (Bloomberg) -- Mitt Romney routinely asks voters whether they’re better off than they were four years ago. He’d be better off asking another question: What has the president done for you lately?

At this point in 2008, amid the worst financial panic since 1929, the U.S. economy was melting down, contracting 8.9 percent in the fourth quarter of that year. Today, by most measures, the economy is in far better shape. Of 70 indicators compiled by Bloomberg, 51 -- including growth, hiring, housing starts and the stock market -- have improved compared with January 2009 when President Barack Obama took office.

“The economy was going off a cliff,” says Nigel Gault, chief U.S. economist at IHS Global Insight in Lexington, Massachusetts, who has been tracking the economy since 1983. “Since then, we’ve been digging our way out of the well.”

In recent months, though, the digging has gotten tougher. The economy has been growing below its historical trend for five consecutive months and nine of the past 12, according to the three-month moving average of the Chicago Federal Reserve Bank’s National Activity Index, a blend of 85 indicators measuring employment, production, housing and consumption.

http://www.sfgate.com/business/bloomberg/article/Romney-Better-Off-for-Not-Asking-as-Economy-3876934.php