IS THIS THE HOPE, OR THE CHANGE? Salena Zito charts the Obama economy and notes that “Among the many things” Obama mocked in his State of the Union address was “anyone who denies that he led a national economic resurgence:”

“Anyone claiming that America’s economy is in decline is peddling fiction,” he said. He shamelessly went on to embellish statistics, claiming 14 million new jobs, including 900,000 manufacturing jobs.

Afterward, FactCheck.orgshowed that it’s more like 9 million jobs, many of them lower-paying service jobs. And, over Obama’s time in office, manufacturing jobs have plummeted by 230,000.

In short, if you “made” something in the Obama economy, you lost your job; if you “served” someone, you got a job — but probably needed two, so you could make ends meet.

In the Obama economy, wages have not improved; in fact, they have created great unease and not inspired the confidence Americans once had in work — which is why the president has responded by pushing higher wages for service jobs once meant to be temporary bridges from high school and college to adult life.

Which has consequences among employers as well, as Christine Rousselle writes at Townhall: “Walmart Cancels Plans for Two DC Stores Due to Minimum Wage Concerns.”