Liz Weston

Presidential candidates always promise economic improvements that are beyond their power to deliver. Any measures that actually could create more jobs, raise wages or lower tax burdens require the cooperation of Congress or business cycles or both.

Even if a president could lead us to the promised land of rising incomes and wealth, we wouldn’t get there overnight. America’s middle class has been wandering the economic desert for decades, and it will take years of better fortunes to restore what’s been taken away.

“Our economy is so large that both good and bad impacts are not seen until years or even a decade later,” said Michael Kitces, director of wealth management at Pinnacle Advisory Group in Columbia, Maryland.

That doesn’t mean you have to wait. In my latest for the Associated Press, what you can do to improve your own personal fortunes rather than wait for some politician to bail you out.