Economics: Are Americans Getting Poorer?

(Drivebycuriosity) - If we believe the media the world is in a sour state. Many articles still refer to recession of 2008 and lament how bad life in America still is. Reading New York Times and other liberal media you get the impressions that Americans are getting poorer every day. But the media reports are biased and they paint a picture which doesn´t reflect the economic reality in the US. If you want to see the economic status quo in the US you might take a look on the chart below ( calculatedriskblog).

The blue curve represents the US retail sales, including food & gasoline. The red line is without gasoline sales. Both lines have been smoothly growing since 2009 and are much higher than the peak before the 2008 recession. Retail sales grew 4.6% in the recent 12 months (plus 4.1% ex-gasoline).

The smooth growth of the US retail, which is large part of consumer spending, shows that America is doing well and is even getting better. Forget the lies of New York Times & Co.