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Reader question: Please explain “no President has done worse by the middle class” in this passage: For four and a half years, Mr. Obama has focused his policies on reducing inequality rather than increasing growth. The predictable result has been more inequality and less growth. As even Mr. Obama conceded in his speech, the rich have done well in the last few years thanks to a rising stock market, but the middle class and poor have not. The President called his speech “A Better Bargain for the Middle Class,” but no President has done worse by the middle class in modern times. My comments: To paraphrase, the author feels that Barack Obama hasn’t done the right thing by the middle class. You can say the same about many US Presidents in that regard I guess but Obama is the worst example (because “nobody has done worse”). Or, in the (passive) voice of the people themselves, the author might’ve said the middle class all felt “hard done by”. Presumably under Obama the collective lot of the middle class deteriorated. The likelier case is that the income of the middle class grows a little while that of other income groups, especially the super rich, grows much more. In other words, the middle class’s share of the national pie shrinks. The middle class didn’t, as it were, get the “better bargain” as Obama, who is a Democrat to boot, promised them to. Anyways, if you understand the expression “do the right thing by somebody” – and that means to treat them fairly and kindly – you’ll have no problem understanding the above paragraph. | 
