Fuzzy numbers obscure a stagnant Obama economy -- Real growth is lower and real unemployment is higher than reported -- By Donald Lambro, The Washington Times

The news media were ecstatic when the government said in January that the economy grew by 3.2 percent in the final three months of 2013. It was convincing proof, they said on the nightly news, that the economy had finally recovered from its chronic lethargy.

However, according to a revised estimate released Thursday by the U.S. Commerce Department's Bureau of Economic Analysis, that 3.2 percent figure was a wild exaggeration.

The U.S. gross domestic product (GDP), the broadest measure of our country's entire economic output, grew no more than 2.6 percent in the fourth quarter — a pitifully low growth rate for the largest economy in the world.

"Averaged across the four quarters of last year, real GDP added 1.9 percent in 2013 from 2012," said Forbes' website reported.

You didn't hear about this on the nightly network news on Thursday? I'm not surprised. More often than not, the network news tends to ignore poor economic data, while exaggerating the significance of occasional numbers that they say prove the Obama economy is turning around.

But 1.9 percent growth for all of last year is dreadful by any comparison, and economists aren't expecting anything much better than somewhere around 2 percent in the first quarter and maybe beyond. By any relevant comparison, this is another sign that the U.S. economy continues to stumble along at a weak, subpar pace in the sixth year of Barack Obama's economically unfulfilled presidency.

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