(MONEY Magazine) – Are you better off than you were four years ago? Presidential candidate Ronald Reagan asked that question in 1980, and voters showed Jimmy Carter the White House door by answering with a resounding no. Challenger Bill Clinton bloodied George Bush with the same question in 1992. So naturally, candidate Bob Dole's advisers recently announced that their man will step up attacks on Clinton's economic record. But that's a risky gambit for Dole. The reason: The majority of Americans are better off on most pocketbook issues after 3 1/2 years under Clinton, who's presided over the kind of economic progress any Republican President would be proud to post. Indeed, people are feeling pretty chipper: The latest Money/ABC News Consumer Comfort Poll was at a 6 1/2-year high for confidence overall, with 29% of Americans saying they are doing better financially than when Clinton took office, up from just 12% in 1994. Only 22% said they're worse off.

You can see why. Interest rates, unemployment and inflation are down. In fact, the so-called misery index--the inflation rate plus the unemployment rate--has tumbled to 8.4, a 28-year low. Inflation has averaged 2.8% under Clinton, and the unemployment rate now stands at 5.6%. The stock market is way, way up, with the Dow rising 75% since Clinton took office Jan. 20, 1993. Even disposable personal income, after inflation, increased 5.2% through the first quarter of '96. And the gross domestic product (GDP) has grown an average of 2.5% a year. That's less than Reagan's post-1983 rate of 3.6% but a decided improvement over George Bush's anemic 1.6%. What's more, the federal budget deficit has been cut by more than half and, at 1.9% of GDP, is the smallest it's been since 1979.

The wealthiest Americans, generally, have profited the most under Clinton, thereby widening the gap between the rich and poor. From 1992 through 1994 (the most recent data available, which includes Bush's last year in office), the share of pretax income going to the richest fifth of American households expanded from 46.9% to 49.1%, while that going to the poorest fifth shrank from 3.8% to 3.6%. Surprisingly, though, in some ways the Clinton years have been less favorable to two of the groups that the President professes to care a lot about: middle-class workers and women. Employees, on average, have only just begun to see modest gains in their wages. And the decade-long rise in women's incomes seems to be reversing.

Despite the generally positive trends, there is a major negative: The long-term picture is troubling. Clinton's failure to slow the growth of Social Security and Medicare means the nation's $130 billion annual budget deficit is poised to balloon again to $285 billion by 2002, when the baby boomers begin retiring, according to the Congressional Budget Office. Says economist Laurence Kotlikoff at Boston University: "Every year, politicians ignore these huge unfunded liabilities, and they get worse. It's unconscionable."

Furthermore, the economy's impressive performance is hardly attributable solely to Clinton. Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan--originally appointed by Reagan--has managed monetary policy with a deft touch, enabling the economy to grow steadily, with little inflation (see Money Forecast on page 162). Clinton also had the good fortune to begin his term near the bottom of a business cycle that figured to improve. And he owes a tip of the hat to the Republican Congress, which kept the pressure on for deficit reduction and also pared down his costly economic-stimulus ideas.

Specifically, here is what Clintonomics has meant to you and your wallet:

INVESTORS: You're enjoying a Bubba-bonanza.

If you were prescient enough to invest in the stock market in 1993 and to hang on, the Clinton years have been bountiful. With interest rates generally low--thanks in part to Clinton's successful 1993 tax increase that helped reduce the deficit--the stock market has boomed. The Dow Jones industrial average is nearing a record 6000, up from 3241.95 when Clinton took the oath of office. The broader Standard & Poor's 500 composite jumped 48% to 668.85 since January 1993, its sharpest 3 1/2-year rise since the early '50s. And the NASDAQ, heavy with high-tech stocks, surged 61% to an all-time high of 1249.15. No Republican President since Dwight Eisenhower has served Wall Street interests so well.

Bondholders have come out ahead too, though they've had to gulp down plenty of Maalox along the way. When interest rates plunged in 1993, the bond market rallied, giving investors a 9.75% return, according to the Lehman Bros. aggregate bond index. But rising rates in '94 sent bond total returns tumbling 2.92%--prices dropped 9.52%--for their worst showing in the 20 years that Lehman Bros. has tracked them. In 1995, another drop in rates sent bond returns up 18.47%, for the second-best year ever. Overall, the return for bonds from 1993 through May 1996 is a respectable 23.05%.

While the rich have gotten richer during the Clinton bull market, so have many middle-class folks who've poured their savings into mutual funds. From 1992 to 1995, the percentage of U.S. households with mutual funds has gone up from 27% to 31%, according to the Investment Company Institute, a fund trade group. And mutual fund owners' average holdings have increased 30%, from $43,500 to $56,700. Better yet, many analysts believe foundations are in place for a long-term rise in financial assets, particularly stocks. Says Edward Yardeni, chief economist at Deutsche Morgan Grenfell in New York City: "I see the Dow at 10000 by 2000." Clinton's prime contribution, says Yardeni: "Staying out of the way of the economy and the Fed."

CONSUMERS: You're paying less but borrowing more.

Clinton's biggest gift to consumers was the sharp drop in interest rates in 1993. Following the President's early drive to lower the deficit, the Federal Reserve Board cut short-term rates while bond traders drove down long-term rates, sending 30-year fixed mortgages from 8.31% in November 1992 to 6.83% in October 1993. That's the lowest mortgage rate since 1971. In all, the rate rollback allowed some 10 million homeowners to save as much as $25 billion by refinancing their loans, according to David Lereah, the chief economist at the Mortgage Bankers Association. Although mortgage rates have since risen, hitting 8.3% this June, they nonetheless remain historically low. Moderate interest rates combined with stable housing prices have helped make housing more affordable under Clinton than at any time since Jimmy Carter's term in the late '70s.

The other big plus for consumers: Prices generally are stable, and for the first time since the '70s, health-care and college costs have been reined in. Although Clinton's massive health reform plan failed, the underlying corporate-driven push toward managed health care significantly restrained the growth of out-of-pocket health costs. Since last May, premiums, co-payments and deductibles increased just 3.7%, vs. 6.3% between May 1992 and 1993, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Prescription-drug prices rose only 2% in 1995, the lowest increase in 20 years.

Some analysts even give Clinton backhanded credit for getting the health-care cost-cutting machine in motion. The threat alone of Clinton's nationalized health-care plan, they say, accelerated the pace of private-sector cost cutting. "As soon as Clinton was elected, the health-care industry began reshaping itself in anticipation of the type of reforms he was espousing," says John Sheils, a vice president of the Lewin Group, a health-care consultant.

Similarly, the College Board reports that average annual increases for tuition and fees at four-year public colleges are now 40% less than they were in the 1992-93 school year: 6% today vs. 10% then. The schools cut costs, while the number of applicants dropped. Also, stronger economic growth let states contribute more to college coffers. Meanwhile, Clinton's popular direct student-lending program--which enables students to bypass the banks and apply for federal loans directly from their colleges--has made borrowing for college easier and arguably cheaper. And the President has thwarted G.O.P. efforts to cut federal college grants that especially help lower-income students. Says David Merkowitz of the American Council on Education: "Overall, on higher education I'd give Clinton a solid B+."

On the negative side, many Americans--in particular, the bottom fourth of American households--are now facing spiraling debt. As a result of layoffs, stubborn 18% credit-card rates and aggressive card marketing, balances on plastic shot up 20% in 1995, according to the American Bankers Association. In the first quarter of 1996, credit-card delinquencies jumped 11%, compared with a year earlier--the highest level since April 1981. On top of that, filings for personal bankruptcy increased by 17.8% during the 12-month period that ended March 31, 1996.

WORKERS: Where are the wage increases?

Clinton can brag--and frequently does--about creating 8 million new, mostly high-paying jobs since taking office. But in general, Americans who depend solely on a paycheck for their income have not come out ahead during the past 3 1/2 years. Median weekly earnings for all full-time workers, after inflation, dropped from $483 in 1992 to $479 in 1995.

Wage stagnation may be ending, however: In the first quarter of 1996, median weekly earnings ticked up to $481. Employers are apparently starting to pass on some of their health-care savings to their workers through slightly higher raises. In March, the Bureau of Labor Statistics' employment cost index, which measures changes in wages and benefits, showed an 0.8% decline in the cost of benefits to employers and a 0.5% rise in wages, after inflation, for a modest gain in overall employee compensation of 0.1%. Still, count yourself lucky if you get more than a 4% raise this year. As Joseph Stiglitz, chairman of Clinton's Council of Economic Advisers, told Money: "We're just beginning to see signs of a reversal in the 20-year trend of declining wages. At the very least we've arrested the decline."

But the news for many women is not cheery. Although highly educated women continue to make big income strides, median weekly earnings (after inflation) for women overall have actually dropped a full 2.6% since 1993, from $417 to $406--after rising for more than 10 years. At the same time, men's earnings fell just 0.7%, from $542 to $538. As a result, the wage gap between women and men is widening again. While the ratio of women's weekly earnings to men's inched up steadily from 64.4% in 1980 to 75.4% in 1992, it has slid from 76.8% in 1993 to 75.5% in '95. Says Barbara Krimgold, research director of the Women's Research and Education Institute: "Most women are working more hours today just to stay afloat."

If you're one of the more than 1.7 million workers--60% white collar--who have lost jobs due to downsizing since the beginning of 1993, you're probably not feeling cheery either. Most land a new job within two years, but on average those positions pay 8% less, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. In Money's 1996 Americans and Their Money survey, when we asked how long it would take to find a comparable job if you were laid off, the No. 1 answer was: "Never."

For highly skilled technical workers, who are fast becoming the wage kings of today's knowledge economy, opportunities have never been brighter, though. A recent Council of Economic Advisers study found that two-thirds of the growth in full-time employment between February 1994 and February 1996 came in jobs requiring high-level managerial and professional skills that pay higher than median wages--such as marketing managers and electrical engineers. Labor Secretary Robert Reich estimates that every year of post-secondary education and training increases annual wages between 6% to 12%. And Princeton University economist Alan Krueger figures that workers who use computers earn 10% to 15% more than those who do not. One example: At 14-year-old Cypress Semiconductor, CEO T.J. Rodgers pays the 1,020 employees at his San Jose headquarters an average of $83,000 a year, including profit-sharing.

TAXPAYERS: Most of you are paying more in total taxes.

When Clinton says that tax burdens have stayed about the same for most middle-income families under his reign, he's telling the truth--sort of. Federal income tax rates have not changed for individuals with taxable incomes below $115,000 (married couples with incomes less than $140,000). However, the combination of the 4.3 cents-a-gallon gas-tax hike in 1993, a higher Social Security payroll-tax wage base (you now pay tax on as much as $62,700 of income, up from $55,500 in 1992) and increases in state and local levies have expanded the overall tax burden on middle-income families. From 1993 to 1996, the nonpartisan Tax Foundation calculates, a two-earner median-income family saw its total tax bill rise from 37.6% of income to 38.2%, the highest effective tax rate in at least 12 years.

If you're rich, you got socked in 1993 when Clinton lifted the top income tax rate from 31% to 39.6%, affecting couples and singles with income of more than $250,000. As a result, an analysis for Money by the accounting firm Price Waterhouse concludes, the effective tax rate for families earning between $200,000 and $500,000 a year rose on average from 24.6% of adjusted gross income in 1992 to 26.6% in 1994, the last year for which the Internal Revenue Service has numbers. Folks earning between $100,000 and $200,000 got a smaller federal tax hike (1.1%), owing partly to a new 36% rate that hit couples earning between $140,000 and $250,000 and singles making $115,000 to $250,000. In the second half of his one-two punch at wealthy Americans, Clinton eliminated the $135,000 cap on earnings subject to the 1.45% Medicare hospital insurance payroll tax. For a $200,000-a-year earner, that has amounted to another $942 annual tax increase.

The only true tax winners under Clinton are low-income families, who won modest relief after the President persuaded Congress in 1993 to expand the earned income tax credit, which lets low-income families reduce their tax liability on a dollar-for-dollar basis or, if no tax is owed, receive a refund. Price Waterhouse finds that an average taxpayer with an adjusted gross income of $20,000 to $25,000 has seen his effective tax rate drop from 8.5% to 8% between 1992 and 1994. "Clinton's is a textbook Democratic tax policy," says Price Waterhouse economist Shvetank Shah. "The rich pay more, the poor pay less, and the middle class stays more or less the same."

RETIREES: This group can't complain much.

Low inflation has been a boon to retirees on fixed incomes. And retirees with money in the stock market don't need to fret much about the puny 4% rates on their bank accounts. But Medicare premiums have soared by 45%, from $31.80 a month in 1992 to $46.10 in 1995. This year, however, the Administration and Congress reduced the premiums to $42.50 a month.

The biggest winners in this group are wealthy retirees, thanks to legislation pushed by congressional Republicans and signed by Clinton last March. The new law raises the amount people ages 65 to 69 can earn without losing any Social Security benefits from $11,280 to $12,500 this year. It'll climb to $30,000 by 2002. A full 60% of this $10 billion tax break will go to folks earning more than $50,000 annually, the richest 9% of the elderly population.

So how should Dole campaign against Clinton? Certainly not by belittling Clinton's economic accomplishments. Dole's best hope is to persuade Americans that we could improve on today's unexciting 2.5% growth, ever-higher taxes and piddling wage gains. He could, for example, emphasize the long-term benefits of eliminating the budget deficit by finally cutting the growth of Social Security and Medicare entitlements. Of course, he'll promise to lower your taxes--while still somehow eliminating the deficit. But no matter which promises you hear from either candidate, just remember this paraphrase of the Clinton '92 election theme: It's a presidential campaign, stupid.