ARE YOU BETTER OFF THAN FOUR YEARS AGO? MOST PEOPLE AREN'T

In 1980, Ronald Reagan politically destroyed Jimmy Carter when he asked, "Are you better off today than you were four years ago?" People weren't better off and, what's more, they knew it. Out goes Carter, in comes Reagan.

In 1988, running against Michael Dukakis, George Bush used the Reagan yardstick to measure his presidency. "If you elect me president, you will be better off four years from now than you are today," he said.

In her nominating speech at the Republican convention in Houston Secretary of Labor Lynn Martin used the Reagan yardstick once again. "Is America better off today than she was four years ago? Of course we are," she pronounced.

Many people in America wouldn't agree with Secretary Martin. Law school graduates, college graduates and high school graduates are all having a much tougher time getting jobs than four years ago. The construction industry is down. Every month a new set of articles reveals the commercial vacancy rates in cities like St. Louis, Cleveland, Detroit, Boston and more.

The Wall Street Journal frequently features articles on laid-off white collar workers who look for new jobs. When many of them find one, it's at a lower rank and lower pay grade than the one they left. When a new hotel was about to open in Chicago, thousands lined up for jobs. MBAs sought positions as desk clerks.

Defense-related industries and Silicon Valley types lay off engineers and computer professionals by the thousands. They can't be readily absorbed back into the workforce.

Membership levels in every blue collar union in America steelworkers, auto workers, machinists are down substantially.

"For sale" and "for lease" signs paper the landscape across the land.

The Washington Post published the following chart, which appears above.

It's hard to figure where Secretary Martin has been during her tenure of office. She can't have paid much attention to the numbers coming out of the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Martin is better off than she was a year or so ago. She found a job after losing her race for the U.S. Senate. Many in America weren't so lucky. President Bush would be better off if he put the Reagan yardstick in the closet for the next couple of months.