Ranting and berating at the National Review
Here’s Jim Geraghty of the National Review:
We’ve reached the point where Biden administration officials, Democrats, and pro-Biden columnists are tearing their hair out, furious that the electorate perceives the economy as being subpar. But if you look in the right places, the economic frustration makes perfect sense — and those right places include grocery prices since before the pandemic, the number of new jobs that are part-time jobs, the current high gas prices and likely summer price hikes, how inflation counteracts the good recent run of the stock market, and how many people owe more in car payments than the worth of their automobiles. Americans measure the economy by a lot more than just the unemployment rate, and no amount of wishing, ranting, or berating is going to get them to change their minds about how they perceive their household finances.
I hope you see the problem here. Americans rate their “household finances” as good, it’s the overall economy they view as poor. No amount of ranting and berating from Jim Geraghty will change that fact. Here’s Axios:
By the numbers: 63% of Americans rate their current financial situation as being “good,” including 19% of us who say it’s “very good.”
Neither number is particularly low: They’re both entirely in line with the average result the past 20 times Harris Poll has asked this question.
The survey’s findings were based on a nationally representative sample of 2,120 U.S. adults conducted online between Dec. 15-17, 2023. (More on the methodology.)
Americans view the economy as poor partly because of the inflation and partly because they hate Biden. Americans view their personal finances as good because their incomes have generally risen faster than the cost of living since the pre-Covid period. (Comparisons with early 2021 are meaningless, as the data was heavily distorted by Covid.)
PS. Biden’s economic policies are really bad, but for reasons that have nothing to do with the current state of the economy.
PPS. Trump has a 6-part plan to bring down inflation:
1. Favors NIMBY policies to prevent housing construction in the suburbs.
2. Expel all the illegal workers that pick our food and provide other key services.
3. Put heavy tariffs on imported food and other goods.
4. Have Medicare do less negotiation of drug prices.
5. Run super massive budget deficits.
6. Easy money.
What? You don’t think that will work?
Tags:
10. April 2024 at 13:02
“4. Have Medicare do less negotiation of drug prices.”
Have you tried convincing your fellow libertarians that they’re wrong on this?
10. April 2024 at 13:53
Frogman, Why would I do that? I’m not sure they are wrong.
10. April 2024 at 17:17
No one should forget that it was revealed that Trump views monetary policy as a competitive, zero-sum game. He thinks there’s a competition to lower interest rates to gain unfair advantages in trade.
Will that actually affect monetary policy if he wins? I wouldn’t say no, if Republicans also control Congress. Witness what’s happened in Turkey, as Erogan considers charging interest to be evil and hence often orders the central bank to set rates below equilibrium.
That said, fortunately, Biden has started to open up a lead over Trump in betting markets.
11. April 2024 at 07:39
@Michael Sandifer:
Really? Which ones? I’d like to see that.
11. April 2024 at 07:52
The fact is, hourly pay hasn’t increased in inflation adjusted terms during the Biden Administration, whereas it increased by more than 7% during the Trump Administration. I absolutey agree that Trump is a jackass and the economic policy changes he’s emphasizing most in his campaign would be very harmful if enacted, but if you’re going to be fair to Geraghty you at least ought to acknowledge that the poll you cite relentlessly about Americans’ views of their personal finances is not the only relevant info on the topic.
11. April 2024 at 08:09
Stan, You said:
“The fact is,”
LOL, you and your “facts”. How about this “fact”? Trump presided over the worst jobs and GDP performance since Herbert Hoover, and Biden’s had spectacular gains in jobs. Is that also a “fact”? I know–that data’s distorted by Covid. And your real wages are not?
Then a minute later you complain that I cite accurate facts demonstrating that Geraghty is wrong, when you think I should have instead been discussing some unrelated issues that I don’t care about.
Talk about mood affiliation!
11. April 2024 at 08:11
I should add that real hourly earnings were still rising and inflation was still low throughout 2020, despite the ridiculous bailouts Congress authorized and Trump rubber-stamped that year. Normally you don’t believe inflation suddenly starts as a consequence of policies that occurred months or years before. Are you going to make an exception with regard to Trump?
11. April 2024 at 12:33
4- Are there libertarians, in significant numbers, without ties to the drug industry who believe Medicare shouldn’t be able to negotiate prices. Coming from libertarians the idea that Medicare, or any entity, should just have to pay whatever the drug companies charge seems bizarre.
Steve
11. April 2024 at 13:26
msgkings,
https://www.predictit.org/markets/detail/7456/Who-will-win-the-2024-US-presidential-election
11. April 2024 at 13:29
@Michael S:
Thanks, I googled that after posting. I wonder if there’s any good data on the swing states….maybe too early to put much stock in any of it yet.
11. April 2024 at 13:35
Now that as the general election campaign has begun, Trump is losing ground. As low an opinion as many may have of Biden, most opinions on Trump are worse. As Biden says, “Don’t compare me to the almighty. Compare me to the alternative.”
I don’t want to completely discount he possibility that Trump wins, but there’s a possibility that this will be the worst beating Republicans have taken at the polls in a very long time. It’s possible they won’t even win the Senate, despite what would normally be extremely strong natural advantages.
The most interesting question to me right now is what the Republican Party looks like after Trump. Right now it’s just a Trump cult. I’m somewhat skeptical of the idea that it remains such a nakedly white nationalist party after it’s shown that it can’t win national elections that way.
While Trumpism is somewhat popular within the party, I have a feeling that Trump isn’t really replaceable. He was in the public eye for decades before running, having established a certain image in the eyes of the gullible. It’s unclear who could take his place.
11. April 2024 at 16:09
Stan, The wage data during 2020-21 was meaningless. Why do you continue to cite it?
12. April 2024 at 04:01
While I agree that the US is currently in a good place in the business cycle despite egregious mismanagement from both Trump and Biden, I don’t know how much you can infer from people’s responses to surveys about their own personal finances.
If you ask me about my personal financial situation, I’m going to tell you it’s good. It was good in 2011, when unemployment was nearly 10%, and I had been unemployed for a year (but had enough in savings to last ten years or more). It’s good now, but it was a lot better last year, when I made 50% more money than I expect to make this year.
Take a look at the first chart here:
https://news.gallup.com/poll/308936/personal-finances-future-concerning-present.aspx
It’s not up to date, but this is the best I can do given that Axios wasn’t interested in showing long-term trends. See how little variation over time there is in ratings of personal finances? The share rating their personal finances good/excellent ranges from 42% in the depths of the Great Recession to 56% in 2019, and poor ranges from 12% to 19%.
Even though the economy is in a good place cyclically, I think you can make an argument that it’s in bad shape because of serious structural problems like a national debt that keeps growing rapidly even during a boom, unfunded retirement benefits, unwillingness to allow housing to be built at anywhere near the rate needed, and an electorate that insists on putting absolute morons into office every chance they get.
12. April 2024 at 06:47
“Even though the economy is in a good place cyclically, I think you can make an argument that it’s in bad shape because of serious structural problems like a national debt that keeps growing rapidly even during a boom, unfunded retirement benefits, unwillingness to allow housing to be built at anywhere near the rate needed, and an electorate that insists on putting absolute morons into office every chance they get.”
Yup.
12. April 2024 at 11:10
Brandon nailed it… that’s 100% it.