In 2008 I was living in a 700 sq ft, one bedroom with my girlfriend and our two pets. She was a recent masters level graduate who after looking for a good chunk of the year found a "decent" job in her field in which she was grossly underpaid working for a small business person. I was working in a decent job with the state which at the time we were living under Pawlenty rule, which meant austerity was in full swing. For state employees that means little to no raise and certainly no room to serve the public in a greater capacity. I was in a dead end at that job until I decided to leave in 2011.
And to be honest from 2000 through 2008 I spent much of my time grinding it out trying to find the best path forward. I took some classes but the price of gas caught up to me. One of the places I worked for went out of business due to changes in how the state paid for the service. Thankfully I left one financially based business because they ended up laying a bunch of people off for some unseemly practices aimed at senior citizens. Such a dark time for the country after 9/11...
Thank God that Obama provided some additional funding to serve the people we were working with, otherwise layoffs for even more of our less senior co-workers were certainly coming....
So back to the question. Am I better off than I was four years ago when Obama took office?
In the fall of 2009 my girlfriend and I bought our first house together and took full advantage of the $8,500 first time home buyers rebate we got from?!?!?!?!
PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA!!!
In the late summer of 2010, my girlfriend became my wife after we got married.
That October after 6 years of driving and paying for my vehicle it was time to re-up and I snagged my very first SUV, what a lovely feeling to have a car you can actually fit in.
By this time my wife had decided to stop getting ripped off by the small business person she was working for and after a couple of months of looking she landed a job working for a major hospital in the area on a part-time basis :(. Fortunately for her being paid what she was worth meant that her salary was doubled:).
Around the same time (late 2010) I began negotiating my exit from my employment with the state to a large non-profit in the area that was actually focused on serving the very people I wanted to serve with the help of a powerful federal grant from you know who!!!
PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA!!!
So as of January 2011 I am working at a new job so is my wife, I make a lateral move with a stronger focus in a growing company that is getting a good chunk of federal funds to serve the people who need it and work for it. My wife doubles her salary and halves her hours at a job that uses her talents as they should be.
Late summer of 2011....BOOM!!! I land my first varsity coaching position in girls basketball.
DOUBLE BOOM!!! My wife and I find out we are having the baby we were planning for ;)
9 months later, our little girl shows up and the one person here that knows me on Facebook can attest to her beauty.
1 month after that I get an offer to be a JV coach literally five minutes away from my house. I love being the boss but I love my baby more, so it's back to the burbs.
So here I am now almost 5 months has past since my daughter was born and two months away from re-electing my main man Barack and these fools on TV have the nerve to be fumblin' and stumblin' over a simple question like whether people are better off than they were four years ago?!?!
Don't ask David Axelrod, ask me!!!
I am so far removed from where I was 4, 8, and 12 years ago that I don't even recognize that life. I've been on an upward trajectory since 2009 and I have no plans to stop and I know for a fact that the policies of the federal government have helped me to achieve some of the dreams I wanted to meet at this stage in my life and I believe that there have been policies enacted within the past four years that will help me achieve even more of my dreams and make it easier for me to help my daughter do the same thing. Thanks to...(you guessed it)
PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA!!!
Am I better off than I was four years ago???
You're damn right I am, that's why I voted for him in the first place.
Back to da shadows!!!!
Baby's doing great so is the fam.
....sheeeeeit, if you think I'm doing better than I was four years ago, you should meet my brother. His last four years make mine look "just a'iight".