GOP refutes Obama on economy: Flat wages, higher prices, smaller labor force

Republicans on the Senate Budget Committee released a report Thursday showing that the economic recovery under the Obama administration has lagged in every key measurement compared to the recovery under President Reagan.

Among other things, it shows employment has lagged significantly under Obama's recovery, and only exceeded pre-recession levels after almost seven years from the start of the recession. In contrast, employment recovered after a little more than two years under Reagan.

Source: Senate Budget Committee Republicans

It also showed a significant lag in U.S. gross domestic product under Obama, and a declining labor force participation rate that has now fallen to historic lows.

The report is a rebuke to a speech Obama delivered earlier in the day, in which he said America is "primed for steadier, more sustained growth." While Obama acknowledged that not everyone is benefitting from America's recovery, he said the U.S. has created more jobs than all advanced economies put together, and said that is due to American innovation as well as "the decisions made by my administration."

The Senate report refutes all that, and says Obama has only succeeded in creating more national debt by pursuing government policies that haven't helped to lift wages at all.

"Millions of Americans find themselves locked out of the American Dream," it finds. "Their wages are either flat or falling, even as the price of energy and goods surges; the labor force is shrinking; and the government stimulus which was claimed to lift the economy to prosperity has instead sunk the nation into a chasm of debt."

On employment the report says the numbers show that it took 75 months to create jobs above pre-recession levels. "That means that during a period of almost 8 years during which the U.S. population 16 years and above grew by 15,653,000 or by 5.3 percent, not one net job was created," it said.

It also noted a 5 percent drop in the labor force participation rate over the last six years, compared to a 3 percent increase that was seen under Reagan. While the declining labor force rate has many economists worried, the White House has tried to explain it away by saying the U.S. was due to see this rate drop sharply as the population gets older.

Obama too his own shot at Republicans during his speech, by saying the economy is so strong that the GOP has been forced to complain about Obamacare instead of the economy or the national debt.

Read the Senate GOP report here:

Senate Budget