I'm personally not better off. Four years ago, I worked for a mid-sized newspaper owned by Gannett, the largest newspaper company in North America. Because of the tanking economy, the company was forced to lay off 30% of their workforce. My job was spared, but the workload increased dramatically as remaining employees had to take up the slack. There was hope that the stimulus and economic recovery plans would work, but after another year and a half, when that failed to happen, another round of cuts were made. Again, I was spared, many were not. Again, my workload increased exponentially. After yet another year of no recovery, and with businesses folding left and right, the advertising revenues had fallen through the floor, and the newspaper again made cuts in staff. When they came to me and told me what all I would now be responsible for, and with a third year of no pay increase, I chose to leave the company. I didn't want to, I loved my job, loved the people I worked with, and felt like I did a good job for my company, but the expectations were more than I could bear.
So now, four years later, I am unemployed. I don't need a job, I have money, but I enjoyed working and doing something. I go to the grocery store every week... hamburger meat is almost too expensive to buy anymore. Everything in the store is considerably higher in price than 4 years ago. This is largely due to rising fuel costs, which is the result of several factors controlled by Obama and his administration's policies.
