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Washington (CNN) — A legislative win is a win — but not necessarily when it comes to swaying voters facing the worst economic conditions since the Great Depression.

High unemployment and fears over an ever-increasing federal debt are weighing heavily on Americans. That could drown out President Obama’s message as he heads out on the campaign trail to tout Democrats’ legislative wins: health care reform, financial regulatory reform and economic stimulus projects, among others.

“Right now he is facing an uphill battle,” said Vanderbilt University political scientist John Geer. “I don’t think there’s much that can be done about that. He’ll sharpen the message. But when economies are soft, incumbents have a tough time.”

And members of Congress, bracing for a tough election, got a frank assessment Wednesday of where the economy is headed.

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke warned that the economic outlook remains “unusually uncertain.” But he said that while there are growing signs of weakness in the nation’s economic recovery, Bernanke and other top Federal Reserve officials still expect “continued moderate growth, a gradual decline in the unemployment rate, and subdued inflation over the next several years.”

Read more on Bernanke’s assessment

In addition to championing Democrats’ legislative wins, Obama is being urged to continue to go after Republicans — and lay out an argument that conditions in the country won’t improve if the opposition takes control of Congress after the midterm election.

So far, that strategy is being employed.

Video: Financial reform signed into law

Video: Obama urges Senate to act on jobs

Obama recently traveled to Missouri to help fellow Democrat Sen. Robin Carnahan in her crucial Senate race.

“The last thing we should do is go back to the very ideas that got us into this mess,” Obama said at the campaign event. “That’s the choice you are going to face in November. … a choice between falling backward or moving forward.”

A CNN/Opinion Research Corp. poll would seem to support that strategy, according to CNN Polling Director Keating Holland.

The poll, released in late June, found that Americans are angry at both the Republican and Democratic parties for the economy, but they continue to blame the GOP slightly more than the Democrats for the country’s current economic woes.

Fifty-three percent said they are angry at both parties; only 7 percent are angry only at the Democrats and 9 percent are angry only at Republicans.

But that’s not necessarily good news for the Democrats, since an anti-incumbent mood tends to hurt the party with more incumbents. Some argue, however, that it suggests 2010 may not be a precise replay of 1994 when Republicans grabbed control of both legislative chambers from Democrats.

“Democrats are saying ‘Look, let’s make this a referendum on Barack Obama as the future and the Republicans wanting to go back to the past — and Republicans wanting more of the same policies that got us into the economic mess in the first place,’ ” CNN Senior Political Analyst Gloria Borger said.

That strategy worked for Democrats in 2006 and 2008, she said, when they told voters change was needed.

“It’s a very good decision on [Democrats'] part obviously, because that’s the way they get some of those voters back — particularly, independent white men who are deserting them,” Borger added.

Another problem for Obama’s legislative campaign tour? That those policies will be portrayed as big-government.

“It’s difficult in the economic environment because people are nervous,” she said. “Polls show that people are more worried about the deficit than getting tax cuts. They’re worried about government spending and worried about too much government. … So he wins Wall Street reform but doesn’t get credit for it because we’re in a different political environment.”

But that is the environment right now. What if the economy were to improve?

“If the economy right now was showing tremendous growth and jobs were being created, he’d have no problem making the argument [for Democrats to be re-elected]. But we’re not there right now,” Geer said.

Economic conditions are not just a product of policy — but also the natural economic cycle, he added.

“Ronald Reagan’s economy took off in part due to some policies he pursued but also because of natural business cycles just like for Clinton. So there’s a lot of it outside the control. Right now, I suspect Obama’s getting a little too much of the blame … we’ll see if he is successful.”

CNN Polling Director Keating Holland, along with CNNMoney.com’s Scott Spoerry and Chris Isidore, contributed to this report.

Can Obama sell Democrats’ legislative victories?

Washington (CNN) — Republicans wasted no time Thursday in calling out President Obama and Democrats for their handling of the economy, warning the country should not follow the Democratic Party down the road to ruin.

“It is time this administration and its Capitol Hill ally stop this job-killing agenda,” Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, said at a press conference with other Republican senators.

Obama is simply “out of touch with the American people and out of touch with the economic realities of our country in the summer of 2010,” said Sen. John Barasso, R-Wyoming.

The Obama administration is fighting back, touting Wednesday’s economic stimulus report, which says the government paid out the largest chunk of stimulus funds so far in the second quarter of 2010 — $116.3 billion — which includes both spending on projects and tax cuts to businesses.

The administration said the the $787 billion stimulus is working and has already saved or created about 3 million jobs. Obama is now calling this the “Summer of Recovery.”

Republicans, meanwhile, argue that the 9.5 percent unemployment rate is evidence that the country is not seeing a “Summer of Recovery.”

The top GOP leader in the House is also targeting the Wall Street Reform Bill, which is expected to be passed by the Senate Thursday.

Video: ‘I think we’ll retain House,’ Gibbs says

Video: Battle for the house

House Minority Leader John Boehner said he liked some things about the bill.

“There are common sense things that you should do to plug the holes in the regulatory system that were there, and to bring more transparency to financial transactions, because transparency is like sunlight. Sunlight is the best disinfectant.”

But Boehner still thinks the bill should be repealed because it is “ill-conceived” and will “make credit harder for the American people to get, clearly harder for businesses to get and … punish every banker in America for the sins of the few on Wall Street.”

Pelosi’s spokesman Nadeam Elshami immediately slammed Boehner’s comments in a statement, saying “This comes as no surprise coming from the Republican House leader who called the financial crisis that caused 8 million Americans to lose their jobs an ‘ant.’ “

In addition to the economy, Republicans are smelling blood in the wake of recent comments made by White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs on the midterm election.

Gibbs said on Sunday that he thinks there is “no doubt there are enough seats in play — that could cause Republicans to gain control.”

The comments were blasted by top Democrats, including House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Majority Leader Steny Hoyer — and seized on by Boehner.

“The panic that’s building amongst Democrats erupted into a full scale civil war this week when the president’s spokesman suggested that his party could lose the House this fall,” Boehner said Thursday. “I understand that the House Democrats are angry because they see the White House throwing them under the bus.”

“With all the trouble the House Democrats are in right now, [it] was really only a matter of time before the gloves came off. I just didn’t know that the targets would be each other,” he said.

Pelosi and others expressed frustration over Gibbs’ comments which were seen by some as helpful to Republicans, according to senior Democratic officials.

It’s one thing for a pundit to state the obvious about the state of play in the election and quite another for a top White House official to offer an assessment that may depress the party’s base just as officials hope to start revving liberals up, the officials said.

Many lawmakers also said that after expressing their frustration, they now want to turn the page and did not plan to rail against the president himself, a senior administration official told CNN.

The White House is also feeling the heat from liberal Democrats who say Obama has not been aggressive enough in pursuing their agenda.

Obama senior adviser David Axelrod responded to those critics Sunday on CNN’s State of the Union. “My admonition would be: Don’t make the perfect the enemy of the good,” he said.

“We’ve achieved more in these two years — in terms of advancing a solid progressive agenda for this country that will help working families and make this a better, more balanced economy — than anyone has done … in our generation.”

He pointed to comprehensive health care reform, the administration’s move to boost fuel efficiency standards and the president’s desire to repeal the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy on gays and lesbians serving in the U.S. military, as part of that agenda.

But those legislative items are also providing fodder for Republicans.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, speaking on Thursday to a group of young Republicans, said the midterm election will be a referendum on those policies.

“You’re here at a time of the explosion of government,” McConnell said. “The people who think what’s wrong with America is that we just haven’t gotten a big enough government … we’re going to have an opportunity to see how the American people feel about that in a few months, because they’ll get their report card.”

CNN’s Martina Stewart and Deirdre Walsh, along with CNNMoney.com’s Annalyn Censky, contributed to this report.

Republicans blast Obama amid Democratic Party tension

Washington (CNN) — House Democratic leaders met with President Barack Obama on Wednesday night to discuss legislative priorities in the run-up to the November mid-term election, but one topic was bypassed — the weekend assessment by White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs that Republicans could win back the chamber.

Aides to the House Democratic leaders told CNN that the meeting with Obama was productive and focused mostly on economic issues and policy. One leadership aide said Obama declared the Democrats would retain control of the House in November, but there was no mention in the meeting of the remark by Gibbs.

Earlier, senior Democratic officials said that at a private Capitol Hill meeting on Tuesday night, a string of House Democrats — including House Speaker Nancy Pelosi — expressed deep frustration that Gibbs had played into Republicans’ hands by answering a hypothetical question on NBC’s “Meet the Press” about whether Democrats may lose their grip on power.

In a statement that senior White House officials maintain was blindingly obvious and really not newsworthy, Gibbs said on Sunday, “I think there is no doubt there are enough seats in play — that could cause Republicans to gain control.”

The senior Democratic officials said it’s one thing for a pundit to state the obvious about the state of play in the election and quite another for a top White House official to offer an assessment that may depress the party’s base just as officials hope to start revving liberals up.

“Members were hot — hot, hot, hot,” one senior Democratic official told CNN about the private meeting Tuesday where House Democrats directed their anger at Dan Turton, a White House aide who attended the session.

A senior administration official acknowledged to CNN there was heavy tension at Tuesday’s congressional meeting, but stressed that many lawmakers also said that after expressing their frustration they now want to turn the page and did not plan to rail against the president himself at Wednesday night’s meeting at the White House with Pelosi and other leaders including Majority Leader Steny Hoyer of Maryland and Majority Whip Jim Clyburn of South Carolina.

Several House Democrats offered a similar message.

Rep. Chris Van Hollen, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee chairman, took a jab at Gibbs on Wednesday when he told reporters that “people need to be aware of how their comments will be interpreted in a political environment.”

Later, in an interview with CNN, Van Hollen stressed the need to move past the comments by Gibbs.

“There is no upside to this and we need to get beyond this and focus less on what the president’s spokesman said on a news show and focus on what the Republicans say they will do if they get control of the House,” said Van Hollen, of Maryland. Republicans are asking voters “to send back the same guys who got the economy in the ditch to begin with,” he said.

Hoyer said Democrats need to get on the same page when they meet with Obama.

“I think our message to the president is we need to be speaking obviously on message from the White House, and from the House, and I think we need to be focused on what we’ve done to create jobs and move the country forward,” Hoyer said, repeating his comment Tuesday that “we’re going to maintain control of the House so I think any conclusion other than that is incorrect.”

Meanwhile, House Republican Leader John Boehner described the chamber’s Democratic caucus as “in chaos,” but acknowledged Republicans have “a steep hill to climb to get to the majority.”

“We’ve got a lot of work to do, but it is possible,” said Boehner, of Ohio.

Dina Titus, a first term Democrat from Nevada and a top target of Republicans, told CNN she hoped the party spat would “get Democrats all enthused and they turn out even more because these are tough races.”

But she also sought to distance herself from the White House and top Democrats, saying: “We’re just running our own race. I’m not Obama. I’m not Reid. I’m Dina Titus and that’s what we’re focusing on.”

Gibbs, on Wednesday at his White House briefing, sought to ease some of the tension by saying Pelosi’s efforts have been “monumental” on behalf of the president’s agenda. He also reiterated that his original comments on Sunday were meant to rally the party into coming together on showing voters there will be a sharp contrast between the Republican and Democratic agendas in November.

“On that choice we will do very well,” said Gibbs, adding that he believes Democrats will keep control of both the House and Senate.

Nevertheless, Gibbs’ comments sent alarm bells through the upper echelons of the Democratic party, especially because Van Hollen’s Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee has a long-planned breakfast meeting Thursday with lobbyists who are key party fundraisers.

The committee, which is in charge of helping to elect House Democrats, had been hoping to project momentum in advance of Friday’s deadline to publicly reveal fundraising numbers for the first six months of this year.

The fear now among some top Democrats, in the words of one top party official, is that the Gibbs comments will “give the Republicans a big fundraising boost” as perception builds that Democrats are in even deeper trouble than already expected.

Gibbs himself has insisted all week that he was really just stating the obvious about the challenge Democrats are facing.

“I think I did what is maybe uncommon in this town and yesterday I opened my mouth and stated the obvious,” Gibbs said at Monday’s daily press briefing with reporters. “I do not believe that you all are now scurrying around to cover this election markedly different based on my having said that there are a number of seats that are in play.”

Gibbs has also stressed all week that he’s merely trying to focus everyone on the fact that both parties will be offering sharply different visions of how to deal with key issues like the economy.

“You’re going to have a choice between the leadership that we have now and the leadership that believes that BP should be apologized to first and foremost, and that the type of calamity wrought by the financial meltdown in the end of 2008 is analogous to the size of an ant,” Gibbs said Monday. “Those are choices that the American people are going to get a chance to hear and make in November.”

CNN’s Deirdre Walsh and Brianna Keilar contributed to this report.

Some Dems still fuming over Gibbs’ comments

By

Mark Trumbull,

Washington (CNN) — President Barack Obama wrapped up a two-state campaign swing Friday, stumping for embattled Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid while talking up the economy in a speech at the University of Nevada-Las Vegas.

Reid’s “a fighter, and you should never bet against him,” Obama said in his prepared remarks. “And that’s just what we need right now. We need someone who’s going to fight for the people of Nevada and for the American people.”

“Harry and I are going to keep on fighting,” Obama said. “Until wages and incomes are rising again, businesses are hiring again, and Americans are headed back to work again. Until we not only recover from this recession, but rebuild our economy stronger than before.”

Reid slammed Senate Republicans for being “the party of no,” claiming he’s only been able to work with a dwindling handful of GOP moderates. “They’re betting on failure,” he said.

Nevada currently has the highest state unemployment rate in the nation at 14 percent, adding to Reid’s tough reelection fight this year against GOP nominee Sharron Angle. At a rally on Thursday. Obama ripped into Angle, alleging among other things that she wants to phase out Medicare and Social Security along with federal education funding.

Obama also attacked Angle for recently calling BP’s Gulf compensation fund a “slush fund” during a radio interview on Wednesday. Angle retreated from her comments on Thursday, saying she shouldn’t have used the term “slush fund” and asserting that she supported the fund.

Nevada is the second stop on a campaign tour also brought the “campaigner-in-chief” to the Midwest this week to help out another Democratic Senate candidate — Missouri Secretary of State Robin Carnahan.

Carnahan will most likely face off in November against seven-term Republican Rep. Roy Blunt, in a battle between two of the most famous political families in Missouri. Both candidates are fighting to succeed Republican Sen. Kit Bond, who is not running for re-election this year. The race is one of the few where the Democrats have a chance to pick up a GOP held seat.

Obama’s visit was his fourth to Missouri since losing the state in the 2008 presidential election to Sen. John McCain by less than 4,000 votes.

In March, Republicans pounced on Carnahan when she didn’t attend an Obama health care reform event in her state, saying she was trying to keep her distance from the president. Carnahan’s campaign said she was in the Washington, D.C. for a conference as part of her duties as secretary of state. Carnahan did team up with Obama when he came back to Missouri a month later to hold an event on the economy.

“Presidential visits are a double-edged sword. They raise money for Democratic candidates and energize Democratic voters, but they give Republicans plenty of ammo and interject Obama into every contest,” says Stuart Rothenberg, publisher and editor of the nonpartisan Rothenberg Political Report.

Following his stop over in Missouri, the president headed west to Las Vegas.

CNN’s Alan Silverleib and Paul Steinhauser contributed to this report.

Obama talks economy in Las Vegas

Washington (CNN) — Republicans lined up on opposite sides Sunday over comments by the chairman of the Republican National Committee that the Afghanistan war launched by former President George W. Bush was “of (President Barack) Obama’s choosing” and may be unwinnable.

Speaking from Afghanistan, GOP Sens. John McCain of Arizona and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina lambasted Michael Steele for the comments, which McCain called “wildly inaccurate” and Graham characterized as “uninformed, unnecessary, unwise, untimely,” while follow Republican Sen. Jim DeMint of South Carolina said Steele should apologize to the military.

However, conservative GOP Rep. Ron Paul of Texas, in a statement to CNN, supported Steele and said the RNC chairman’s characterization of the war was correct.

“He is guiding the party in the right direction and we (the GOP) are on the verge of victory this fall,” said Paul, who mounted an unsuccessful bid for the GOP presidential nomination in 2008. “Chairman Steele should not back off. He is giving the country, especially young people, hope as he speaks truth about this war.”

Video: Paul praises Steele’s comments

In comments at a Republican fundraiser in Connecticut Thursday, a YouTube video shows the RNC chairman declaring of the war in Afghanistan, “This was a war of Obama’s choosing.”

“This is not something the United States actively prosecuted or wanted to engage in,” he added.

Steele has stepped back from his original comments by emphasizing his support for the war.

“The stakes are too high for us to accept anything but success in Afghanistan,” Steele said in a statement intended to clarify his controversial comments.

It may be too late for him. Prominent Republican voices are calling for Steele’s resignation, including Liz Cheney, a former State Department official and the daughter of former Vice President Dick Cheney; Weekly Standard editor William Kristol and former South Carolina GOP chairman Katon Dawson, who finished second to Steele in the RNC chairman’s race last year.

Both McCain and Graham questioned Steele’s ability to keep his job, but said it was up to Steele and the RNC to make that decision.

“I think that Mr. Steele is going to have to assess whether he can still lead the Republican Party as chairman of the Republican National Committee,” McCain said on the ABC program “This Week.” Graham said in a separate interview on the CBS program “Face the Nation” that Steele’s comments did not represent mainstream GOP thinking.

“It’s not the Republican Party’s position, my Republican Party’s position,” Graham said.

At the same time, Graham joked that “the good news is Michael Steele is backtracking so fast he’s going to be in Kabul fighting here pretty soon.”

DeMint, in an interview on “FOX News Sunday,” called Steele’s comments unacceptable.

Steele “needs to apologize to our military, all the men and women who’ve been fighting in Afghanistan,” DeMint said, adding: “This is a war we can win and we must win.”

Paul, meanwhile, wants the United States to withdraw its troops from Afghanistan.

“I would like to congratulate Michael Steele for his leadership on one of the most important issues of today,” Paul said. “He is absolutely right: Afghanistan is now Obama’s war. During the 2008 campaign, Obama was out in front in insisting that more troops be sent to Afghanistan. Obama called for expanding the war even as he pretended to be a peace candidate.”

Steele’s critics are supporting “Nancy Pelosi and Barack Obama’s war,” Paul said of the Democratic House speaker and president.

“The American people are sick and tired spending hundreds of billions of dollars a year, draining our economy and straining our military,” Paul said. “Michael Steele has it right and Republicans should stick by him.”

However, Pelosi last week voted for an amendment to a Pentagon spending bill that would have placed tough restrictions on funding for the war in Afghanistan — including a demand for a detailed troop withdrawal plan and a threat to pull money for the war if the military stays beyond next summer.

The amendment failed, but more than half the House Democratic caucus and nine Republicans voted for it, despite a White House veto threat if the final bill included the provision.

Both Graham and McCain said the United States must remain in Afghanistan as long as it takes to achieve the goal of preventing the country from again falling under Taliban control and becoming a safe haven for al Qaeda.

“The reason we came here is to secure America,” Graham said, adding it was “imperative we say to our friends and enemies alike we’re not leaving here until we’ve succeeded.”

CNN’s Mark Preston and Tom Cohen contributed to this report

Republicans take sides over latest Steele controversy

By

Gail Russell Chaddock,

(CNN) — President Barack Obama traveled to Columbus, Ohio, on Friday to mark the groundbreaking of what the administration is touting as the 10,000th road project to be funded by the politically controversial $862 billion economic stimulus plan.

The trip was part of the launch of the White House’s “Recovery Summer,” a six-week push to highlight what the administration says will be a summer and fall of job creation fueled by a new surge in federal stimulus spending.

Obama visited a project in downtown Columbus expected to create more than 300 construction jobs while contributing “to the broader economic development effort underway in the area,” according to the White House.

“These projects haven’t just improved communities,” Obama said. “They’ve put thousands of construction crews … to work.”

The project is a good example of the purpose of the stimulus plan, which is “not just to jumpstart the economy … but to make the investments that will spur growth and spread prosperity and pay dividends to our communities for generations to come.”

The trip marked Obama’s eighth visit to the politically critical swing state since assuming the presidency a year and a half ago. Obama last visited Ohio on May 18 — a trip also used to defend the stimulus plan.

The stimulus, which is formally known as the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, was designed to boost the country’s economy by increasing federal government spending and cutting taxes. Critics have repeatedly characterized the plan as a budget-busting boondoggle that failed to sufficiently reduce unemployment.

No Republicans in the House and only three in the Senate voted for the bill. The measure was initially believed to have a price tag of $787 billion, but earlier this year, the Congressional Budget Office increased its forecast for how much the stimulus will add to the nation’s deficit, raising its estimate by $75 billion.

While job creation is a top issue across the country, it’s especially important in Ohio, where the most recent data put the state unemployment level at 10.9 percent.

Ohio is a crucial state in presidential elections. Obama won Ohio by 5 points over Republican Sen. John McCain in the 2008 election. The most recent polls in Ohio indicate that Obama’s approval rating on the job he’s doing as president stands around 45 percent.

The state also has some high-profile contests in this November’s midterm elections, including governor and senator. In the gubernatorial contest, incumbent Democrat Ted Strickland faces a tough re-election battle against his Republican challenger, former Rep. John Kasich.

The Republicans are hoping to hold on to the seat of retiring Sen. George Voinovich. Surveys suggest a close race between the GOP nominee, former Rep. and Bush administration budget director Rob Portman, and the Democratic nominee, Lt. Gov. Lee Fisher.

Republicans note that Fisher didn’t team up with the president the last two times Obama was in Ohio. Both Fisher and Strickland were scheduled to appear at Friday’s event.

CNN’s Paul Steinhauser and Xuan Thai contributed to this report

Obama marks stimulus plan milestone

WASHINGTON – The recession has hit middle-income and poor families hardest, widening the economic gap between the richest and poorest Americans as rippling job layoffs ravaged household budgets.

The wealthiest 10 percent of Americans — those making more than $138,000 each year — earned 11.4 times the roughly $12,000 made by those living near or below the poverty line in 2008, according to newly released census figures. That ratio was an increase from 11.2 in 2007 and the previous high of 11.22 in 2003.

Household income declined across all groups, but at sharper percentage levels for middle-income and poor Americans. Median income fell last year from $52,163 to $50,303, wiping out a decade’s worth of gains to hit the lowest level since 1997.

Poverty jumped sharply to 13.2 percent, an 11-year high.

“No one should be surprised at the increased disparity,” said Richard Freeman, an economist at Harvard University. “Unemployment hurts normal workers who do not have the golden parachutes the folks at the top have.”

Analysts attributed the widening gap to the wave of layoffs in the economic downturn that have devastated household budgets. They said while the richest Americans may be seeing reductions in executive pay, those at the bottom of the income ladder are often unemployed and struggling to get by.

Large cities such as Atlanta, Washington, New York, San Francisco, Miami and Chicago had the most inequality, due largely to years of middle-class flight to the suburbs. Declining industrial cities with pockets of well-off neighborhoods, such as Pittsburgh, Cleveland and Buffalo, N.Y., also had sharp disparities.

Up-and-coming cities with growing middle-class populations, such as Mesa, Ariz., Riverside, Calif., Arlington, Texas, and Henderson, Nev., were among the areas showing the least income differences between rich and poor.

It’s unclear whether income inequality will continue to worsen in major cities, said William H. Frey, a demographer at the Brookings Institution. Many Americans are staying put for now in traditional cities to look for jobs and because of frozen lines of credit.

“During the years of the housing bubble, there was middle-class movement from unaffordable metros with high-income inequality,” Frey said. “Now that the bubble burst, more of the population may be headed back to the high-inequality areas, stemming their middle-class losses.”

As to poverty, the biggest shifts last year were increases in metropolitan areas in Florida and central California. Stockton, Calif., jumped from 14.1 percent to 16.8 percent, while Lakeland-Winter Haven, Fla., rose from 12.7 percent to 15.4 percent. Tampa-St. Petersburg, Orlando, Bradenton and Palm Bay — all in Florida — also saw gains in the share of poor residents.

Among other findings:

—Income at the top 5 percent of households — those making $180,000 or more — was 3.58 times the median income, the highest since 2006.

—Twenty-one states and the District of Columbia had higher poverty rates than the national average, many of them in the South, such as Mississippi (21.2 percent), Kentucky, Arkansas and Louisiana (each with 17.3 percent). That’s compared with 19 states and the District of Columbia that ranked above U.S. poverty in 2007.

—Use of food stamps jumped 13 percent last year to nearly 9.8 million U.S. households, led by Louisiana, Maine and Kentucky. The increase was most evident in households with two or more workers, highlighting the impact of the recession on both working families and unemployed single people.

—Pharr, Texas, and Flint, Mich., each had more than a third of its residents on food stamps, at 38.5 percent and 35.4 percent, respectively.

—Between 2007 and 2008, income at the 50th percentile (median) and the 10th percentile fell by 3.6 percent and 3.7 percent, respectively, compared with a 2.1 percent decline at the 90th percentile. Between 1999 and 2008, income at the 50th and 10th percentiles decreased 4.3 percent and 9 percent, respectively, while income at the 90th percentile was statistically unchanged.

—Plano, Texas, a Dallas suburb, had the highest median income among larger cities, earning $85,003. Cleveland ranked at the bottom, at $26,731.

The findings come as the federal government considers new regulations to rein in executive pay at companies in which it has invested. President Barack Obama also typically cites the need for higher taxes on the wealthy to pay for health care overhaul and other measures, arguing that the wealthy have disproportionately benefited from tax cuts during the Bush administration.

The 2008 figures come from the Current Population Survey and the American Community Survey, which gathers information from 3 million households. The government first began tracking household income in 1967.

The real estate market has finished the freefall and is now sitting at the bottom of the value curve. Buyers are rare, as many families are deciding to stay put instead of move. Finance is still in short supply and the lending criteria is ever increasing.

But it isn’t all doom and gloom. There are buyers out there, with money in their pocket but it is their market, and they know it. Marketing a property to meet the new demands isn’t easy, but proper planning and application can make it happen.

Barbara Forks, 53 of Sarasota had her home on the market for over six months without a bite.

“The real estate agent kept telling me the market was too slow, that there were too many other properties for sale in my area. There was always some excuse. I think in all that time we only had about three viewings.” Said Barbara in a recent interview. “We decided to take a friends advice and withdraw the sale, which we did, much to the agents chagrin. Then we took a step back and looked at our home through the eyes of a buyer.”

“That was quite difficult, because you have to be critical about somewhere you have lived for years and thought of as home. The ‘to do’ list grew longer and longer as we looked at everything we could think of. It annoyed me that the agent hadn’t done this with us months ago. We could have been in a new home somewhere by now.”

Barbara’s story is by no means unique. We have heard of many others who have done much the same thing, often through watching home makeover shows, of people asking friends to act as a buyer.

Barbara then talks about what work they had done. “We did as much of it as we could, but we aren’t as young as we used to be so I called John Sweet of Sweet Sheldon Homes to come and talk to us. He was nice, straightforward and honest with us. The quote was a bit more than others we had received, but he seemed much more genuine, and spend over an hour talking to us about things. Even about some of the things that can go wrong.”

Sweet Sheldon Homes are Naples renovation contractors who also do remodeling and new home building. They have been in business since 2003 and is run by John Sweets. His website propounds his business ethos of being straight and honest with people and telling them what they need to know, not what he wants them to hear.

Barbara’s house was refurbished by Sweet Sheldon Homes, a Naples  Remodeling company over a four week period. The exterior was painted, the driveway cleaned, the interior decorated and new cabinet doors in the kitchen we added.

The house then went on the market again, with a differed real estate agent and sold eight weeks later, for just under the asking price.

“Sweet Sheldon Homes worked miracles, and turned our tired old house into something someone wanted. Everybody who is having trouble selling their home should do this.”