That has been a blessing for investors and helped the stock market edge back into positive territory for the year recently, despite lingering doubts about the strength of the economic recovery.
Stock-repurchase programs already have more than tripled from last year's levels to nearly $150 billion, according to Thomson Reuters, and some analysts expect corporations to put as much as $400 billion in extra cash into investors' pockets by the end of the year.
But while that is adding to income and spending power of the highest earners, it hasn't garnered applause from the public at large. Only 7 percent of Americans cited the stock market's performance as the best indicator of the economy's health in a Heartland Monitor Poll a month ago.
Still fewer — 4 percent — rated the profitability of major corporations as a good barometer of the economy. And voters seem to by and large dismiss reports that the economy has been growing steadily for more than a year.
Voters are focused not only on the unemployment rate, but also on family incomes, which have taken a beating as a result of job losses and cuts in wages and benefits during the recession. About a quarter of the public cites incomes as the best measure of the recovery.
That trend doesn't look too promising for the Democrats, either, although last year's $814 billion economic stimulus measure has played an important role in propping up incomes with beefed-up government assistance for the unemployed.
Moreover, frustration with skimpy raises and shriveling incomes has been building for a long time, as recent census figures show that middle-class households have been losing ground for much of the past decade.
"Frustration has overwhelmed any sense of progress on the economy," said Robert J. Shapiro, a former Clinton economic adviser and political commentator. "These remain deeply frustrating and even desperate times for millions of Americans."
The vast majority of the 8.3 million job losses during the recession occurred in the waning days of the Bush administration and first six months of the Obama administration, before the president had a chance to try to change anything, he said. But that distinction is lost on voters.
If the trend toward lower incomes is not reversed, it poses a threat not only to Democrats in the current election, but also to Mr. Obama in his likely re-election bid in 2012, Mr. Shapiro said.
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