Romney was quick to exploit the comment, which offered support for the central conceit of his campaign that Obama, despite good intentions and soaring speeches, has done little to improve the economic lot of the middle class.
“This president can ask us to be patient. This president can tell us it was someone else’s fault. This president can tell us that the next four years he’ll get it right,” the former Massachusetts governor said in a statement.
“But this president cannot tell us that YOU are better off today than when he took office. America has been patient.
“Americans have supported this president in good faith. But today, the time has come to turn the page.”
One of Obama’s top political advisors, David Plouffe, meanwhile charged that Romney’s campaign was built on “a tripod of lies” accusing him of misrepresenting the president’s positions on welfare reform, health care for the elderly and small businesses.
Obama is on a four-day “Road to Charlotte” tour taking in territory that will decide November’s election, in which his prospects are clouded by a painfully slow economic recovery and 8.3 percent unemployment.
He started in Iowa, the state that nurtured his unlikely 2008 presidential run and where he is now locked in a tight race with Romney.
After Colorado, the president heads to Ohio to celebrate the Labour Day holiday with working Americans on Monday.
Should Obama win Ohio, a perennial bellwether state and one where most polls show him with a narrow lead, he will be the hot favourite to win a second term in the White House.
No Republican has won the White House without having Ohio in his column.
Obama will travel to another swing state, Virginia, on Tuesday, before flying into Charlotte on Wednesday on the eve of his big convention address.
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