Has Obama Changed the Economy for the Worse?

A friend of mine posted an article that presents many arguments for the complete failure of the Obama administration's economy. Some of the claims seemed pretty hyperbolic and much of the "evidence" seemed dubious but I thought they were worth reviewing anyway. Over the next several posts I will investigate the following claims made in the article:

• Index of Economic Freedom: #11, lowest global ranking, 7th decline in 8 years, dropped to the second tier in 2010. We'll also want to look into the components of this index and the US's score/ranking since 1995 if we can.
• Obama has implemented 600 MAJOR regulations ($100m+ impact), on track to implement 641 more, many more than the 426 implemented by W, costing $1.4B each
• Labor participation rate near 40-year low (including record number of women) and implication that that is an indicator of an unhealthy economy. Here we'll want to break down LPR into components and understand what's driving it - is it joblessness, or retirees?
• Obama accrued more debt than every other president before him combined. Here I'm especially interested in how much of that figure is attributable to Obama (or any president).
• 46M Americans living in poverty
• Nearly 50M Americans on SNAP (food stamps)
• Record number of home foreclosures during Obama's presidency. Here I'm interested to see if this is a real Obama phenomenon (and, if so, why?) or if most of these are leftover from the 2007-2009 mortgage crisis.
• America's credit rating downgraded for the first time ever. Here again I'm also interested in how much Obama might have to do with that.
• Trust in Obama's leadership and administration remains at historically low levels.

After that it's all a bunch of unsubstantiated, subjective claims that will be much harder to validate or refute - but I think the above list gives us plenty to work with!