President Joe Biden goes into next year’s election with a vexing challenge: Just as the U.S. economy is getting stronger, people are still feeling horrible about it.
Pollsters and economists say there has never been as wide a gap between the underlying health of the economy and public perception. The divergence could be a decisive factor in whether the Democrat secures a second term next year. Republicans are seizing on the dissatisfaction to skewer Biden, while the White House is finding less success as it tries to highlight economic progress.
“Things are getting better and people think things are going to get worse — and that’s the most dangerous piece of this," said Democratic pollster Celinda Lake, who has worked with Biden. Lake said voters no longer want to just see inflation rates fall — rather, they want an outright decline in prices, something that last happened on a large scale during the Great Depression.
“Honestly, I’m kind of mystified by it,” she said.
Median income is up since before the pandemic, even when adjusting for inflation. The average person is better off.
“My rent is going up and food and gas are more expensive. My tooth hurts but I can’t afford to get it fixed, and now my check engine light is on.”
“ACTUALLY median income is up!”
Do you see how that’s not helping?
Gas is actually the one thing I’ve noticed that has been a lot better lately. But everything else is still expensive from the crazy greedflation every company was trying to pull when we were tolerating post-pandemic cost rises.
Gas prices are one of the few economic indicators most people are aware of, sometimes painfully. If Biden wants to turn sentiments around, lowering those more would probably be the most effective means.
Yes, Biden should pull the magic gas lever for Americans! What is he waiting for??
Health care is actually hugely underestimated, here. Health costs have been going up decade over decade and people’s health problems have been stacking up. While in the '70s and '80s people could get treatment, someone born in those years started out with the ability to get medical care but has increasingly lost access as they’ve gone through their lives.
Those people are getting older, now, and it’s getting to the point where they can’t just ignore the stuff they can’t afford. Conditions that would have been easy to treat (but often rare/expensive) are becoming chronic, fatal, or debilitating.
Life expectancy is starting to drop and while that drop is largely due to COVID (which, by itself, is an insane thing) it’s also a warning sign about what’s to come.
Prices go up every year, it’s by how much matters. For example, rent has been going up slower than inflation for a year now. For every person whose rent went up, there must be a lot of people who don’t go online to verify their rent did not go up
You’ve got numbers on the brain. Think like a human.
We’re living in some of the best economy of our lives. Was nobody here alive in 2009?
I was. The economy didn’t feel much different. Barely had anything left at the end of the month and a major expense would bankrupt me, just like today.
Except for all the people who lost their jobs back then, yeah, no different
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/economics/americans-are-going-hungry-strong-economy-rcna128105
Revealing article. When food prices jump 25% and rent 30%, then wages need to jump similarly to make up the difference or else people can’t afford to eat or live. But wage growth still hasn’t outpaced inflation and won’t until the end of next year. (I don’t know about anyone here but my salary certainly hasn’t caught up to inflation yet. Not even close.)
It is no wonder regular people are going hungry and think the economy is failing them. Because it has. Until more people can afford the absolute basics their perception isn’t going to change.
Cost of living is outpacing it. Housing in particular.
Yeah every time I get a raise I think “finally I’ll be able to buy a house soon” then I look at the prices and see I’m still losing ground.
Wrong
Definitely not true for me personally or anyone I know well enough to know their financial info. Most people I know are barely able to stay in place, with their ‘raises’ almost immediately consumed by inflation and higher rent everywhere.
They are not the median, then, but maybe in the lower half of the income which is not doing as well
Yeehaw! I don’t know anyuh them median’s neither! Any y’all met a median?
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Median by definition is not skewed by outliers. If there are 160 million workers, the 80 millionth worker is the median