The hidden slide in standards of living

In response to Obama Economy Taking Toll on Baked Good:

And don’t forget, Javier, that a lot of this food inflation has been hidden by keeping prices relatively steady, while reducing the amount of food in the package.  I’ve been following that trend for years.  Obviously, manufacturers have good reasons to hide rising costs, so as not to alienate consumers, but the net effect is to conceal part of a real slide in the American standard of living.

Some of this started before Obama came along, but it’s gotten worse under him, and his policies are keeping it from getting any better.  Look at how much more people are paying for gas.  After some early grumbling, they seem to have accepted this entirely unnecessary New Normal, just like they accept double-digit real unemployment – it’s never gone below 10 percent, due to a collapsing workforce, no matter what the BLS numbers preferred by Obama’s media courtiers say.

And now it looks like unemployment is about to surge higher.  I’m curious to see if there’s an organized effort to cover this up, maybe cook up some numbers that have to be “revised” later, because a major unemployment spike will put wind in the ObamaCare repeal movement’s sails, while the canvas goes even limper on the S.S. Amnesty.  Also, it looks like the “great housing recovery” is over, or at least stalling out for a while.

Obama’s phony, half-hearted “pivots to job creation” are annoying because the media keeps taking them seriously, which defuses public enthusiasm for the real pivot to job creation – more properly, a pivot to economic growth – America desperately needs.  It feels like we’re sliding past a real point of no return here.  Not only will working Americans learn to make do with less, but they’ll increasingly expect the government to help them make ends meet – Food Stamp Nation is far, far larger than any imaginable welfare program to feed people who would otherwise starve.  And they’re growing comfortable with the idea that this is as good as it gets, America’s best days are behind her, we can demand no more than what Uncle Sam sees fit to give us.  Truly free people are defined by their unwillingness to settle for what someone else thinks they deserve.

Update: The Weekly Standard notes that American household income has dropped more than twice as much during Obama’s “recovery” as it did during the preceding recession.  What’s worse than Jimmy Carter’s obvious malaise?  Barack Obama’s carefully hidden malaise.