"The latest poll from Harris released by the Guardian suggests that well over half the country is delusional. Polling shows that 55% of Americans believe the economy is shrinking, and 56% think we are in a recession. Neither of those things are remotely true. Meanwhile 49% believe the stock market is down for the year even though it's at a record high. Even more bizarre, 49% believe that unemployment is at a 50-year high, though the unemployment rate has been under 4%, a near 50-year low." - Heather Digby Parton
In my April 5th post, I noted half of the respondents in an April 4th WSJ survey:
What’s Wrong With the Economy? It’s You, Not the Data
Defined inflation incorrectly, conflating high prices with high inflation. But the sobering fact is that once prices rise they seldom go back down to what normal plebes believe to be 'proper' levels, in this case pre-pandemic.
The true guide for high inflation is whether the overall year's average rate is higher than the long term average inflation rate. For example, the U.S. Inflation Rate is currently at 3.15%, compared to 3.09% last month and 6.04% last year, and 8.3 percent in 2022
This is lower than the long term average of 3.28%.
Hence, inflation is going down, receding - irrespective of what you paid for eggs, milk and bread in 2022, 2023. This is given you do not base inflation rate on specific prices of specific groceries or other goods. To reinforce that take, by more than 2-to-1 (56% to 25%) WSJ respondents "said the economy had gotten worse, rather than gotten better over the past two years." But as the WSJ writers pointed out:
"That is difficult to square with the robust employment growth, unemployment near its lowest in a half century, and in gross domestic product (GDP) which actually accelerated last year."
These sorts of confirmation bias errors combined with the continued dismal rating of Biden on inflation and the economy means a more objective perspective is desperately needed to wake our fellow Americans up. They simply can't be allowed to go into this momentous general election in a sleepwalking condition. (Much of which I also attribute to a carryover from the pandemic).
In a follow up piece (April 25th) the WSJ "talked with hundreds of Americans in nearly every corner of the country" and found a unifying mental glitch: Over and over again they insisted their own economy wasn't thriving regardless of what the economic indices and numbers looked like. But as the earlier WSJ piece noted:
"As the saying goes you can't eat gross domestic product, but what you eat is part of GDP and while many people say they are cutting back on groceries and eating out, the data show that collectively they are not."
No they are not, wonder of wonders. They're taking expensive plane trips, going to Swiftie concerts and as the WSJ adds:
"Americans as a whole are still spending more on groceries and restaurant meals, even after adjusting for inflation, than in 2019."
This disconnect led to the introduction of the CORE score (WSJ, ibid.) to try to assist 'Muricans getting a grip on reality - because their actions don't conform to it. The motivation (April 25th, ibid.):
"It is important to know who is benefiting from the economic growth and whose lives are being improved. It is also important to know which places are benefiting. The American map has become so fractured between rich and poor communities that a more granular analysis is needed.
To that end, the CORE score is rooted in county level measurements, making it possible to see differences within counties along lines of race and ethnicity, age, education, income and sex. To that end the CORE score is broken down into four central elements: economic security, economic opportunity, health and political voice."
The graphic shown (as a map) at the top of this post, as well as the table given, bear this out and show how detached too many of our countrymen have become - likely from watching too many FOX news propaganda efforts. For example, the District of Columbia (depicted as a bastion of thugs and poverty by the Right) has the highest state level CORE score for 2021 -the most recent year for which the statistics were available. Meanwhile, South Texas features some of the lowest scores. But why is that? Perhaps because this state like too many other red ones, refused to expand Medicaid access during the pandemic when it had the chance. Readers can use the color-coded legend at the top of the map with associated CORE scores to parse out the differences for other areas.
Another intriguing feature is the graph showing a radically changing GDP over 2014-21 but scarcely any variation in CORE score. How explain this? As Financial Times contributor David Pilling wrote in 2018 article ('Why GDP Is A Faulty Measure Of Success', TIME, Feb. 5, p. 41):
"Invented in the 1930s, the
figure is a child of the manufacturing age - good at measuring physical
production but not the services that dominate modern economies. How would GDP
measure the quality of mental health care or the availability of day care centers
and parks in your area? Even Simon Kuznets, the Belarussian economist who
practically invented GDP, had doubts about his creation."
GDP is supposed to
measure the total production and consumption of goods and services in the
United States. But the numbers that make up the Gross Domestic Product by and
large only capture the monetary transactions we can put a dollar value on. Almost everything
else is left out: old growth forests that maintain cooling and act as CO2
repositories, watersheds, animal habitats, e.g. the Everglades, and costs of
infrastructure maintenance. But ALL of these count toward the physical
security and welfare of a society. If bridges collapse owing to maintenance
failure and hundreds or thousands of drivers are inconvenienced, delayed
- then that has a cost and hence an economic impact!
In addition, there are hundreds of other contributions not registered that
arguably have major economic repercussions. For example, a 2015 Forbes article
highlighted how 40 million family caregivers in
the U.S. are putting their own careers on hold to provide unpaid care —
sometimes for decades. The estimated total value of the care
has been put at nearly $1 trillion. This isn't reckoned into the GDP.
Thus, removing these aberrations, as the CORE score does, discloses a relatively stable, almost straight line graph, as we see. This is the basis for the authors saying they "see little improvement in American well being since our data began in 2005." They agree that at least health scores have improved, but that is because - thanks to government - health coverage has expanded. If it were up to the Righties and Trumpers the misery index would be vastly greater, I can assure you! The authors nonetheless go on to point out the enhanced health factors are "offset by a decrease in measures of economic security". (Based on credit bureau data on household finances.) This may also explain why so many Americans are so dissatisfied with an economy that "looks strong according to traditional metrics."
See Also:
And:
And:
Donald Trump routinely claims he “built the greatest economy in the history of the world.” It is a claim rarely challenged in the mainstream media. If true, it would be at least part of a possible claim for re-election. But is it true?
There are five things we need to know to evaluate Trump’s claim to economic wizardry.
The first is that rather than “building” a strong economy, Trump hitched a ride on the one that was handed to him by Barak Obama and Joe Biden. When Trump took office, the economy had already been growing for 90 straight months. It would go on to grow for another 38 months before Trump drove it into the ditch. It was the longest U.S. economic expansion since data was first collected, in 1854. But Trump didn’t “build” it. He inherited it.
The second thing to know is that Trump’s stewardship of the economy has been far less effective than that of many other presidents over the past 60 years. In 2018, Trump’s best year for growth, the economy expanded 3.18%. That is the 29th best year for growth since JFK took office in 1961. For 2017, growth clocked in at 2.22%, 44th best in the last 59 years.
Best ever? It’s not even close to being close.
What about median income? That is a reliable measure of economic well-being. According to the House Joint Economic Committee, “During the last two years of the Obama administration, annual median household income increased $4,800. This is three times more than the $1,400 increase during the first two years of the Trump administration.” Best ever? Hardly.
Job growth? That, too, is a reliable indicator of a strong economy. The same Joint Economic Committee reported, “During the last 33 months of the Obama administration, nonfarm job growth averaged 224,000 per month. During the first 33 months of the Trump administration, the average was 34,000 jobs per month less.” Best ever? Please.
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