Obama’s Numbers (Quarterly Update)

Obama’s Numbers (Quarterly Update)
Reviewing some key statistical measures of Barack Obama’s presidency so far, we find:

• The economy has added more jobs since Obama took office than it did in his predecessor’s entire eight years in office.
• Despite the improved economy, the number of people receiving food-stamp assistance has continued to grow, and now more people have been added to the food-stamp rolls under Obama than under any single previous president.
• Federal spending under Obama has grown faster than inflation, but far more slowly than it did under President Bush.
• Federal debt held by the public has grown by 90 percent since Obama took office.
• Obama has ordered seven times more drone strikes than Bush in the covert conflicts in Pakistan and Yemen, according to independent estimates.
• Domestic oil production has soared; oil imports have dropped by one-third; new cars are getting 17 percent better mileage; and wind and solar power have increased 157 percent.

These are some of the insights that emerge from the first in a series of regular quarterly updates of key statistical indicators of the Obama presidency.
As with our “Obama’s Numbers” article in October, and the pre-election update we posted Nov. 5, our intent is to provide accurate measures of what’s changed — for better or worse — since Obama first took office in January 2009.