“Oops” -- at an event today, Vice President Joe Biden said the middle class has “been buried the last four years” under President Obama.  Watch him here.

Most Americans seem to agree with the Vice President.  A majority told a recent survey they’re not better off under the Obama administration.  And while Senate Democrats block House-passed jobs bills, and the White House refuses to work with Congress to avert the fiscal cliff (by stopping all of the tax hikes and replacing its defense sequester), middle class families and small businesses continue to struggle with:

• Fewer Jobs: The unemployment rate has been higher than eight percent since the president’s ‘stimulus’ was signed into law – 43 straight months.  “[T]he proportion of working-age Americans who have a job or are looking for one” has dropped “to a 31-year low of 63.5 percent.”  And small businesses are struggling because they’re dealing “with too many taxes and regulations.”
• Higher Taxes: Democrats are “willing to risk tax hike for all” if they don’t get a tax hike on small businesses that will destroy more than 700,000 jobs.  A group of 88 economists warn the president’s tax hikes must be stopped before they do more damage to the economy.
• Lower Wages: “People lucky enough to find new work are often taking steep wage cuts,” says the Wall Street Journal.  Three years after the recession officially ended and two years after “recovery summer” began, “median household income is down $2,544, or nearly 5%.”
• Higher Prices: “Consumer prices rose in August by the most in three years,” and “average retail gasoline prices have more than doubled under President Obama…”  Higher gas prices are “slowing the already-weak U.S. economy” and “they could get worse in the coming months.”
• Record Debt: The national debt has surged past $16 trillion on President Obama’s watch, and “the CBO projected that by the end of 2012, the American government will owe more money than the entire economy will generate in a year.”  Analysis by Jim Pethokoukis shows the debt racked up by President Obama “could mean a $4,000 a year middle-class tax hike.”

“Middle-class families deserve a president who will get Washington moving on solutions that bring jobs home, clear the cloud of debt, and foster long-term economic growth,” said Speaker John Boehner last week. Vice President Biden made it pretty clear today that President Obama is not that president.