2016 Election Guide

James Altucher has had many job titles: serial entrepreneur, investor, trader, writer, podcaster, but here’s one that’s missing: VOTER. As we enter the final three months of the agonizingly long Presidential election, Altucher says that while he doesn’t judge people like me who do vote, he wants anyone who is on the fence not to feel compelled to vote.

James believes that the way to participate and to make the system better is to “help people…do charity, or build a good company, or hire people, or help people get jobs…do random acts of kindness…that’s so much better than standing in line for two hours in November and voting.” (For more on James Altucher, check out my podcast from earlier this year).

I still like the feeling of voting – every time I do it, I think of all of the places around the world where people die to try to get the right to vote. If you are also the kind of person who wants to vote, you will pay attention to the question: Are you better off today than you were eight years ago?

The answer to that question is complicated and highly personal. If you had plowed through all of your savings and lost your home in 2008, you may be better off than you were in 2009, but that doesn’t mean you are feeling good about your personal financial life or the economy as a whole.

Here’s where we stand in some big categories since 2009:

Economic growth: GDP has expanded at just over two percent during the recovery, making this recovery sub-par, compared to the annual average post World War II growth rate of 3 to 3.5 percent. That makes sense, since the Great Recession, which started in December 2007 and ended in June 2009 (according to the Business Cycle Dating Committee of the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)) was the worst contraction since the Great Depression.

Jobs: 14.4 million jobs added in the recovery and unemployment, which peaked at 10 percent in 2010, is now 4.9 percent. Critics have questioned the quality of jobs that have been created, many of which have been heavily concentrated in lower-wage industries, like food services and drinking places, administrative and support services (includes temporary help), and retail trade.

Income: For those lucky enough to have jobs, the financial crisis and recession accentuated a two –decades-long trend of stagnant wages for the middle class. put a dent in median household income. According to Sentier Research, real (adjusted for inflation) median annual household income as of June 2016 was $57,206, two percent higher than the median of $56,101 in June 2009 and it is not significantly different than the median of $57,147 in December 2007, the beginning month of the recession that occurred more than eight years ago. But the median is still 1.1 percent lower than the median of $57,826 in January 2000.

Housing: While stock market indexes bottomed in March 2009, it took the epicenter of the crisis, the housing market, far longer. House prices peaked in 2006, then reached bottom in early 2012. National house prices have recovered to their pre-crash highs on a nominal basis, but factoring in inflation, they are still about 17 percent below the bubble peak nationally. Struggling homeowners are doing much better: the serious delinquency rate, which counts late payments of more than ninety days, is at the lowest level in eight years.

Stocks: Although almost half of US citizens do not own a stock or stock mutual fund, the other have seen a huge gain in their holdings. The S&P 500 is up by over 180 percent (with dividends) from the beginning of 2009 to the middle of this year.