By Kerby Anderson

When President Obama decided to take an economic victory lap in Elkhart, Indiana recently, I guess we shouldn’t have been surprised. Every outgoing president wants to make the case that his presidency helped build the economy. But to hear the president speak, you would think that the economy is booming and the federal debt is dropping. That is not the case.

The May jobs report showed that only 38,000 jobs were added to the economy. But that probably will be revised downward. The Brookings Institute argues that 4,000 jobs were actually lost last month. Even more disturbing is word from the head of the Federal Reserve, Janet Yellin, that they may consider imposing negative interest rates in an effort to get the economy growing again.

Central to the president’s message was the claim that “some cable news stations and right-wing radio” aren’t giving a true picture and are the reason so many people believe the economy is in bad shape. First, it is hard to accept that the entire nation is being brainwashed by conservative media when the great majority of Americans get their news from major networks like ABC, CBS, and NBC and left-leaning newspapers and social media.

Second, economic facts are stubborn things. The truth is that incomes have fallen significantly during the president’s seven-plus years in office. The national debt has doubled. During his time in office, America’s national debt had increased by $10 trillion. That is more than all his predecessors combined.

Third, the unemployment rate that the president quoted isn’t really telling the whole story. If you finally give up and stop looking for work over a four-week period, the Department of Labor no longer counts you as unemployed. More than 90 million Americans are out of the workforce.

There is a reason why more Americans tell Gallup they think the economy is in poor shape. They see and feel the consequences of the policies of this president.