A couple of weeks ago, I read that only 47 percent of American adults have a full-time job. I thought at the time that was the most damning legacy of the Obama (mis)administration I could find.

Then I read this, from the Associated Press:

Four out of 5 U.S. adults struggle with joblessness, near-poverty or reliance on welfare for at least parts of their lives, a sign of deteriorating economic security and an elusive American dream.

Survey data exclusive to The Associated Press points to an increasingly globalized U.S. economy, the widening gap between rich and poor, and the loss of good-paying manufacturing jobs as reasons for the trend.

The findings come as President Barack Obama tries to renew his administration’s emphasis on the economy, saying in recent speeches that his highest priority is to “rebuild ladders of opportunity” and reverse income inequality.

As nonwhites approach a numerical majority in the U.S., one question is how public programs to lift the disadvantaged should be best focused — on the affirmative action that historically has tried to eliminate the racial barriers seen as the major impediment to economic equality, or simply on improving socioeconomic status for all, regardless of race.

Hardship is particularly growing among whites, based on several measures. Pessimism among that racial group about their families’ economic futures has climbed to the highest point since at least 1987. In the most recent AP-GfK poll, 63 percent of whites called the economy “poor.” …

While racial and ethnic minorities are more likely to live in poverty, race disparities in the poverty rate have narrowed substantially since the 1970s, census data show. Economic insecurity among whites also is more pervasive than is shown in the government’s poverty data, engulfing more than 76 percent of white adults by the time they turn 60, according to a new economic gauge being published next year by the Oxford University Press.

The gauge defines “economic insecurity” as a year or more of periodic joblessness, reliance on government aid such as food stamps or income below 150 percent of the poverty line. Measured across all races, the risk of economic insecurity rises to 79 percent. …

Going back to the 1980s, never have whites been so pessimistic about their futures, according to the General Social Survey, a biannual survey conducted by NORC at the University of Chicago. Just 45 percent say their family will have a good chance of improving their economic position based on the way things are in America.

I read this, and I conclude that we are screwed. The economy cannot be fixed or made better anymore. Like where we are now? Good, because this is as good as it will ever get.

The Wall Street Journal pointed out last week that the median American family income has dropped 5 percent since Barack Obama took office. Seems that after five years of confusing publicly traded companies with business (the former comprises exactly 0.1 percent of the latter), and after attacking job creators and wealth, the economy is worse off. And as Timothy P. Carney points out:

“Even though our businesses are creating new jobs and have broken record profits,” President Obama said in his economics address last week, “nearly all the income gains of the past 10 years have continued to flow to the top 1 percent.”

It’s odd that Obama touts these facts, because the facts indict his policies. …

Obama’s first term, with all its tax hikes, regulations, mandates, subsidies and bailouts, saw stock markets rise, corporate earnings break records and the rich get richer, while median income stagnated and unemployment remained stubbornly high.

Obama rightly calls the last few years “a winner-take-all economy where a few are doing better and better and better, while everybody else just treads water.” …

Median household income has fallen by 5 percent since 2009 — when the recession ended and Obama came into office — as the Wall Street Journal pointed out after Obama’s speech. But corporate profits and the stock market keep hitting record highs.

How does Obama think these are points in his favor?

If he’s using this data to prove he’s no Marxist, fine. Point granted. But Obama seems to think that middle-class and working-class stagnation under Obamanomics somehow calls for more Obamanomics.

The unstated premise is this: More government means more equality, while the free market favors the rich and tramples on the rest. …

Government grows, the wealthy, the big, and the well-connected pull away, and the rest of us struggle.

One reason: Obamanomics leans heavily on trickle-down economics. How does Obama promise to create jobs? With more loan guarantees to sell jumbo jets and more subsidies to make solar panels — taxpayer transfers to the big companies with the best lobbyists, with some crumbs hopefully falling to the working class.

Also, Obama’s regulations crush small businesses, protecting the big guys from competition. This hurts Mom & Pop and would-be entrepreneurs, but it also hurts the working class. New businesses are the engine of job growth, but new business formation has accelerated its decline in the last few years, hitting record lows.

Given how well Obama focused on the economy before now, his most recent pivot to paying attention to the economy will accomplish nothing. You cannot take away enough from the 1 percent to make the 99 percent’s economic lives better. As the Wall Street Journal pointed out last week:

For four and a half years, Mr. Obama has focused his policies on reducing inequality rather than increasing growth. The predictable result has been more inequality and less growth.

The top half of the income inequality issue is the least important. Rich people are always able to prosper despite political attempts to make them prosper less. Simple math says the gap between rich and poor will always increase. The issue, therefore, is the less-than-rich, and Obama has made them, and us, more less-than-rich.

We’ve already seen before it’s implemented that ObamaCare has resulted in American workers’ losing their full-time jobs. And the U6 measure of unemployment and underemployment has never been higher under any presidential administration than it is right now.