Pain is inherently personal. Comparison to others doesn’t help. It would be like a doctor telling someone with a broken thumb that their pain is less than another patient who has two broken femurs. Sure, but the person with the broken thumb can’t exactly be bothered to teleport their mind into someone else’s nervous system; that’s not how psychology works.
So when many Americans are struggling with inflation, telling them about how many other nations are suffering worse, doesn’t win votes.
Objectively great for who? It isn’t isolated individuals who are struggling here. There are way more 25 year olds who have to live with their parents, who can’t afford to eat out or go on vacations. People aren’t just struggling, but they see all of their friends struggling too. If you tell them things are great, they are going to think you are completely out of touch with reality.
I just responded to this point in my previous post, possibly I ninjad you.
If an economy is bad because we can find people or sectors that are struggling, then every economy ever has been bad. There has never been a perfect economy.
So that’s why we look at aggregate measures and see that employment is at record-breaking levels, salaries have grown over inflation and are significantly higher than they were prepandemic, the stock market is roaring (which doesn’t just help hedge fund managers or whatever, but people’s pensions) and the OP listed plenty more besides these.
Saying it’s a great economy doesn’t mean 100% of people are rich.
If you sector struggling is people under 40, yeah that is a problem, even if things are really good for everyone else. This is what the polling is saying too. Biden is doing really well with the elderly. He is putting up terrible numbers with young votes, who absolutely do not think the economy works for their generation.
But in most ways they are doing better or the same as before, so why would they now see this as a negative for Biden?
I don’t think it has to. Like I say, one side is saying the economy is terrible, the other is laying down and always trying to be in the middle. The net result is society gets pulled continuously in one direction.
I mean, let’s take another example: crime. Virtually all the data is showing crime coming down in the US, and it’s pretty hard to claim all the counties of the US, including in red states, are lying about this to try to make Biden look good.
Yet that’s different to many Americans’ perception. Why?
Because one side talks about “migrant crime waves” and just shows clip after clip of scary non-white people committing violent crimes. The other side hardly talks about it. What’s the net result?
But I have posted analysis which shows that Republicans tend to be more partisan in how they answer these kind of “how is the economy going” questions. So, anytime a Dem is in office, there’s an outsized swing against the economy. I agree that there are people with real concerns, and they shouldn’t be ignored. But some of it isn’t anything other than, “I hate Brandon” masquerading as “ummm, yeah the economy has been a bit on the downswing.”…And this partisanship gap has been a rather recent phenomenon. It wasn’t like this 20 or 30 years ago. It’s become more pronounced during the MAGA era.
Agreed. I think the reason I started this thread is that we’ve never - in my lifetime - been in an economy with this much strength, where the POTUS was nevertheless getting hammered in the polls due to “the economy”. It’s a new phenomenon, really. I think the emergence of MAGA has something to do with it. It’s not the entire explanation, but part of it.
There’s another thread on this board with a poll asking about the ages of posters here and it is clear that The Straight Dope is overwhelmingly older, with the majority of people over the age of 50. People my age and younger are a distinct minority here. I think this has a big impact on perceptions.
Most of you had opportunities and benefits that we just don’t have any more. You went to college when it was much more affordable and actually made a difference in your lives. Now we graduate with tons of debt and require a Bachelors just to be noticed by an employer as a bare minimum, and even my friends who have Masters degrees are struggling to find decent work and are barely making more money than someone with a Bachelors.
You also built your careers and bought your homes at a time when things were far more attainable than they are now. And now that we have become adults and have been in the workforce for some time, the attitude we get is “Well, it worked out for us, so it should work out for you. And if it doesn’t, it is your fault!” My dad bought a house and supported my mom and I on a correctional officer’s salary. Good luck doing that today.
One obvious difference (and I believe there’s already a companion thread for crime) is that, when crime rates are down then I’m not getting robbed or assaulted. However, despite the economy being “good”, I still experience higher register prices, higher mortgage and insurance rates, etc. So it’s not really people being tricked into seeing these things, it’s that people are more concerned about things affecting them directly and visibly than the charts and graphs people wave around to say how awesome things are. In crime terms, this is like murder rates going down 50% but people are vandalizing my property weekly. Then everyone wonders why I’m not celebrating this important decreased crime stat and saying it must be because of FOX News.
People keep wanting to win this like it’s a Reddit debate and not an exercise in diplomacy.
But this is a new phenomenon we’re experiencing. We have a verifiably very strong economy across many types of measures. We’ve had a lightning-fast recovery from a pandemic, with jobs galore, and people spending, and wages going up. And the President’s numbers are in the tank on the economic question itself. I don’t think this has ever happened. That’s what prompted this thread.
Your answer seems to be, “well, people are experiencing bad stuff.”…which is true. But wasn’t that true when previous presidents presided over similar economies? And why didn’t those previous presidents get hammered? This question still hasn’t been answered by you or anyone really.
And I’m not picking on you, per se. But there has been a change in the political environment that isn’t adding up, in my view.
Also depends on the kind of crime too. How many complete stranger rapes or murders or other violent crime really happens compared to crimes where the parties already know each other? I’m not likely to be shot just going shopping. But property crime, like my car getting broken into or stolen? Higher chance.
It’s rather like my earlier complaint about Target locking everything up. It looks bad in “Oh, there must be a ton of shoplifting if they’re doing that” and it’s annoying to the point that I just won’t deal with it and go somewhere else.
Again, a lot of these “the numbers are good” doesn’t mean that people are doing well. There’s always a low level anxiety. “Can I afford a replacement car if mine breaks or is stolen or crashed into by someone?” “How screwed am I if I or someone in my family has a major medical issue?” “What if my company lays me off just to juice the next quarter’s numbers?” Getting a raise that managed to be 1% net above inflation isn’t going to deal with any of that.
A lot of the posts in the thread seem to be not aware that, “We know your life sucks but everyone else is doing better economically so that’s why you should vote for Biden.” is not a winning strategy.
The highest inflation rate since Clinton was elected in '92 was 3.8%. It went from 1.2% in 2020 to 4.7% in 2021. In 2022, it was 8%. We haven’t had a “similar economy” is a long while.
Much like with interest rates, where comments from people who were buying a home in the 80s say this generation should be happy that it’s not 18%. Except houses cost much much more, buyers are competing with cash purchasers and with big business, and that those were never locked into the 18% for long and then they had the benefit of the tech boom.
But we had Reagan in '84 getting re-elected in a landslide, as the economy was recovering from very high inflation. The reasons for the inflation were different. But still, Reagan got high marks for the economy.
And Bush didn’t have a strong economy to run on in 1992. It was a very long, weak, grinding jobs recovery from the 1990-91 recession.
I think it’s important that we recognize what is happening on the Right in America. I posted it above, but I can post it again if you like. There has been a change in how Republicans poll on economics, crime, and other questions, strictly based on who is in office when they are polled. I think that’s very important to note.
Do you not think that is important? If not, why not?
One thing I’ve noticed in mainstream media is that some writers casually mention “runaway inflation” or “skyrocketing costs” the way other people talk about the weather. Made-up examples (but similar to stuff I’ve actually seen):
With today’s runaway inflation, it’s important to economize on building materials whenever you can.
We weren’t going to let the Gaza situation, the cool weather or skyrocketing costs ruin our weekend getaway.
It’s not important in either case to exaggerate the rate or impact of inflation. (It’s always important to “economize on building materials,” and you could literally list any three worries if you’re talking about things that didn’t ruin your weekend.) But writers get lazy and unwittingly (I hope) perpetuate the idea that we’re in fact suffering through “runaway inflation” with “skyrocketing costs.”
Let’s assume for a minute that most Americans are not economists. The main things I have had to deal with over the last year or so
Groceries
New cars (3 total but not all mine)
Medical bills
You could argue that the last two have nothing to do with Biden’s policies and show me facts and figures to tell me that I am mistaken on how much money I’m spending and maybe you’ll convince me you are right or that somehow I owe it to my fellow Americans to become more broke-ass because
But try to sell that to Americans as a whole.
Inflation was at 12.5% in 1980 and 3.9% in 1984. Of course Reagan was re-elected. Biden’s term saw inflation leap up. Not saying it was Biden’s fault, but it’s what he has to work with when messaging.
I wasn’t comparing Clinton to Bush through their election, I was using Clinton as the benchmark for what I’d consider my adult life. Somewhat arbitrary but the point is that this economy isn’t common and trying to cast back to prove how different this election is to one forty years ago doesn’t seem especially meaningful.
I don’t think so. Republicans have always presumed Dems are bad for the economy. It is the reason that has changed. Before it was the Tax-and-Spend Dems that didn’t understand how Keynesian economics worked - specifically run a surplus and save during good times so you can spend during downturns. As pointed out many times on this Board, that story has changed and now the Pub line is that Democrats spend our money on the wrong things like education, social welfare and infrastructure in blue parts of the country. You see if you spend money with the Republican plan
Money get put into the economy via Republicans
???
Profit