It’s usually the change in economic conditions that people vote on, not the absolute level. So, if things are getting better from a bad place, that will be more positive than if things are absolutely better, but worse than they were a couple of quarters or couple of years ago.
So, things are getting better from a bad place, but people are still down on the economy. Weird.
I can’t point to specific poll data, but my understanding as it relates to the economy, most voters ask themselves in the voting booth, "Am I better or worse off than I was the last time I was voting for president. If worse, then they do not vote for the incumbent. If the same or better then the incumbent is more likely to receive their vote. People hold the POTUS accountable for a lot of things that are really outside the scope of the office. This excludes single issue voters that vote on a variety of issues like abortion, gun control, social security, yada yada.
OK, well, they are much, much better off than they were in November, 2020. Unemployment was almost 7%, there were still lots of pandemic-related shortages and shut downs, and so on.
The economy in our region is booming. Businesses are thriving, there are “Help Wanted” signs all over the place, and people are spending.
Yeah, that 0.33% of the GDP the US is spending on Ukraine is what’s killing the budget. Even more so when you consider the dollar figure on military aid is fairly dicey, we’re not going to replace all those M113 or M2 Bradley ODSs that were sitting in the desert in storage that we sent to Ukraine with fresh production, but everything has to have a dollar value assigned to it. It’s not like Iraq where we were literally flying in pallets of $100 bills on C-130s and watched $12 billion in cash disappear with no idea where it went.
But hey, it’s all about perception. At least Fox doesn’t have Tucker Carlson openly shilling Kremlin talking points anymore.
Absolute truth. I am aware of all the great numbers, but that fact has to fight inside my head with the fact that everything is much more expensive. A lot of things have just about doubled in price over the past few years, staples like milk, bread, butter, eggs…
I know Biden isn’t to blame, because I’m informed. I know a LOT of uninformed people and a lot of misinformed people who will blame everyone from the president to the secret global cabal that runs the world to the lizard people to the greedy grocery stores. Whoever they blame, they’ll take any chance they can to change whatever variable they have within their power to change. Shop at a different store, buy a different brand, elect a different president.
Trump was a gods-awful president but he knew how to spin and promote and bang away at whatever he wanted you to believe was true was indeed the truth. He had the greatest economy on the face of the earth ever in history*. (Totally untrue, but very widely believed.)
Here’s the graph for the price of eggs.
Here’s the graph for the price of milk.
Here’s the graph for the price of butter.
You’d have to really carefully pick your time periods to show any doubling there. Sorry, I couldn’t find the equivalent for butter.
I want to be really clear here – I’m not saying that there’s not a perception of high inflation, terrible employment, and a bad economy. I’m also not saying that a bad perception is bad news for Biden – it is. I’m just saying that the facts don’t support it.
Again, it’s a combination of right-wing propaganda, relentlessly pounding on any Democratic president, regardless of the reality, and a centrist or center-right media always trying to find balance. Unemployment ticks up? Fox will be screaming about it from the rooftops, and the NY Times will say something like, “In bad news for Biden, unemployment has ticked up, possibly a warning sign for the economy and his election.” Next month, unemployment ticks down? Fox will have crickets and the NY Times will say something like, “Despite bad employment news last month, unemployment has come down this month. However, problems remain.”
So, if you’re a right-winger, you’re getting the propaganda, and if you’re a not, you’re still getting constant negative reporting.
Bingo!
I think you have a skewed version of how many people in the US watch any cable news. There are about 168MM registered voters in the US. Here are the recent number of viewers on an avg. day for the cable news networks.
Fox - 1.4 million
MSNBC - 736k
CNN - 416k
NewsMax - 300k
NewsNation - 94k
Assuming that none of those viewers are duplicated and all of them are registered voters. You’re only talking about 2% of registered voters watching cable news. If the right or left wing are utilizing cable news as their propaganda tool, they’re failing.
More than half of Americans don’t discuss politics weekly. But almost all voters buy groceries, gasoline, childcare, make house payments, car payments, rent payments, on a regular basis.
IMO the bigger issue Biden is having/will have on the economy is that people (and honestly especially the American voting public) have sticky memories for bad economic times. I think the economic trends are overall good, possibly great in the past year but a lot of the public has a pessimistic mi dset and isn’t going to believe it yet.
I don’t think the dems are screwed though because in rhe present moment it’s not just the economy and social issues are going to be a net loser for the GOP.
I don’t think I mentioned cable news even once. I talked about right-wing news sources (Fox News is an example, and even it has a website). People get news from somewhere.
I guess you’re conceding that, if people vote on how things have gotten better or worse since the last election, then they will see that things are better? Or, do you think everyone is a single-issue inflation voter (inflation is way down, but up since the last election)?
I didn’t mention discussing politics – I said that different news source cover economics news differently. And, inflation has come way down, real wages are up, and unemployment is low and steady. Someone with a job will have an easier time buying those things than someone without one.
I think I’ve said my piece here. I’m bringing facts and cites and others are responding with feelings and impressions. That’s fine – as I said, perception is important in this case. I don’t really have anything else to add to the conversation.
Seriously? Have you looked at those graphs? They all show major increases, out of line with the general trends, over the last three years or so. Eggs have come back down to close to where they should be, and there’s been small decreases for the others, but not enough to offset those huge increases. That’s the real data, and it’s something people see in the grocery stores every week.
It’s not a literal “doubling” of prices, but it’s still the largest increase any has seen in decades.
I never claimed there hasn’t been inflation. You can make any statements you like, but you were obviously exaggerating for effect. If you claimed, “regular people are out at the supermarket and see a 15% rise in prices”, it’s just not as dramatic as “they can see that prices have doubled”.
There’s a remarkable split between how people perceive they are doing (they are doing quite fine, in their own estimation) and how the economy is doing overall (doing poorly in their own estimation). Also, there’s a big split between how Republicans and Democrats see the economy is doing – that has always been the case, but the split is wider than it has ever been.
I can’t really track down those cites right now, unfortunately.
There’s this (gift link) Krugman column from 30 Jan.
He talks about a survey where a record high number of people report that they are doing at least “OK”, but simultaneously a record low number of people thing the overall economy is doing OK.
Asking about your personal situation invites an upward bias – people brag a bit about their financial acumen. But asking about the overall economy is a political question – people insist it is better when “their guy” is in power and worse when the “other guy” is in power.
Thanks! Yes, I got all that from Krugman blogs and articles. I think he has revisited it since then.
Yes, and I think Krugman has posted graphs talking about how the difference between supporters of the two parties is as wide or wider than it has ever been.
Anyway, I’m not flouncing, but really don’t have much more to add.
Back in my right-leaning days, I would listen to talk radio (mostly while driving), and otherwise got the majority of my info from web sites. I very rarely watched any news on TV, cable or otherwise.
Now that I’m on the other side, I’m pretty much the same, except I don’t listen to conservative talk radio (it just pisses me off if I do), but listen to NPR. And I visit different web sites.
I suspect that it’s mostly an older demographic that watches cable news, the vast majority of people consume it online these days.
As an anecdote based on an incomplete memory with no cite, I recall a NPR (Marketplace?) interview with a former economic official (treasury Sec? Fed chairman?) a couple of weeks ago who said that based on the current forcast appears that might actually get the soft landing that the feds were hoping for with reduced inflation and no recession. When asked about the perception gap he said that there is usually a lag between economic improvement and consumer sentiment, and figured that people will start feeling better about the economy in the fall.
I don’t know if he’s right, but there is hope, and over a year before the election for perceptions to catch up.
If you wish to leave the friendly conversation here, you are free to do so.
I just don’t think that a majority of voters in the US follow political news from anywhere on a regular basis. We as humans all have a tendency to project our on practices and views onto other people. When your average person, thinks about economics, they think about how much money they are making, how much things costs for them. They aren’t analyzing the slow down of the costs of milk price increases. They aren’t looking across the country and the trends of unemployment rates in the rust belt. They know if they have a job and if their friends and families have jobs. They see the homeless problem not as a regional issue, but are there homeless they see regularly on the way to work, their kids schools, etc. The economy is a very personal thing for them.
And, on average they are making more in real terms than they were last year and are more likely to be employed, as are their friends.
The vast majority of the people who are seeing homeless people on the way to work are Biden voters anyway, since they live in big, blue cities. I live in a NYC suburb and commute to the city and occasionally see a homeless person at the Hoboken terminal, but that’s not a new thing, and nothing to do with the current or previous president.
Yes, and the majority of people say that their personal economy is fine, it’s just bad for <vaguely waves hands> the rest of the people.
I think I’ve repeated myself enough here. I’ve made enough claims backed by enough cites, and I get back uncited generalizations and feelings (not singling you out, but many posters here). It’s exhausting.
I also dislike all the people who generalize, but I refuse to be specific about any person or how they do so.