The Obama Depression: In Poll, 7-in-10 Say Economy Has Permanently Changed for the Worse Since '09

The news articles and the survey report don't say it, but the findings from the new Rutgers University poll on the economy are nothing less than a devastating indictment of the Obama administration and its inept --- indeed, malicious --- handling of the economy since the crash of 2008.

Obama's 2009 stimulus bill was a boondoggle that proved Keynesian economics doesn't work.

Today, more than 5 and a half years since Obama took office, the national unemployment rate stands at 6.2 percent, and the most recent report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics shows that unemployment in July increased in 30 states. We're still stuck in a tepid recovery, and Americans are hopping mad about it.

Here's the Rutgers report, "Unhappy, Worried, and Pessimistic: Americans in the Aftermath of the Great Recession":

The protracted and uneven recovery from the Great Recession has led most Americans to conclude that the U.S. economy has undergone a permanent change for the worse. Seven in ten now say the recession’s impact is permanent, up from half in 2009 when the recession officially ended. Much of this is rooted in direct experience. Fully one-quarter of the public says there has been a major decline in their quality of life owing to the recession, and 42 percent say they have less in salary and savings than when the recession began. Despite five years of recovery, sustained job growth, and reductions in the number of unemployed workers, Americans are not convinced that the economy is improving. Only one in three thinks the U.S. economy has gotten better in the last year and only one-quarter thinks it will improve next year. Moreover, just one in six Americans believe that job opportunities will be better for the next generation of workers, down from four in ten five years ago. These are some of the findings of a new survey conducted between July 24 and August 3, 2014 by the Heldrich Center with a nationally representative sample of 1,153 Americans.

Click through for the full report.

And then watch this astonishing focus group segment with pollster Frank Luntz on CBS News This Morning. The usual caveat is that focus groups are statistically insignificant, although the strong opinions held among the participants here, and the near universal disappointment among the participants, provides a crushing snapshot of the public sentiment with just over two months to go before the November midterm elections.