The Economy isn't GREAT, but it's not NEARLY as bad as it could be.
Sure, we're in debt by about 3 billion dollars, and the unemployment ratio is slightly higher than during the Great Depression, but 75.8% of legal US Citizens owned their own homes, compared to 70% in 1993.
Another issue, is that 16 percent of our population is Hispanic (2010 Cencus), while only 4% of the Legal Citizens population is 4%.
Our current unemployment rate is 8.9% as of Feb 2011,
It's actually about as high as it was in the 80's, when we received a flock of Cuban Refugee's.
Taking into account the percentage of the Alien Population,
1.4% of our unemployment rate make up the Hispanic Non-US citizens.
So factoring in the amount of employed LEGAL US CITIZENS, it's about 7.5%, same as it was in 1993.
So in other words, we ARE fucked, but not as hard as we can be.