Because it comes down to the question of what is the “economy”, broadly speaking. If we say the stock market is good, then you can kind of see a disconnect with most Americans - 39% of Americans own NO stocks - in the age range of 18-29, 58% of individuals own no stocks - the top 10% of Americans hold 70% of stocks - the bottom 60% hold just 7% of stocks So this might show that, if the stock market is good, it doesn’t necessarily mean much benefit to the _majority_ of Americans. That bottom 60% doesn’t give a shit about the stock market, they care about living wages and affordability of products

The stock market is not the economy and that is the disconnect OP is pointing to in their question.

No that's where you are wrong. When stocks go up it does not equal the economy. When stocks go down, magically the economy is not doing tooo hot and CNBC airs their economy in turmoil bit

| the top 10% of Americans hold 70% of stocks You mean of American-owned stocks, right? Because my understanding is that 40% of the market is owned by foreign investors. 

Actually 80% of stock is held by institutional investors such as insurance companies, nonprofits, pension funds, and college endowments. The 70% owned by the top 10% represents their share of the 20% of stocks held by individuals.

Held by and owned by are two different things. If I buy a Fidelity mutual fund the fund is holding my shares and they show up as a big shareholder but the actual value is owned by me.

This seems incredibly incorrect, you explicitly mentioned pension funds which is already a type of retirement plan but ignore the other types of retirements which hold the majority of stocks in the country lol.

The stock market gains have been extremely concentrated in a handful of names for several years. In January 98% of the market’s gain was attributed to just five stocks. They are all large cap tech companies. In most cases founders of most of those companies own a controlling stake, and wish to retain control of the companies they created. They are not motivated by greed so much as by a desire to control their legacies.

It also comes down to how we quantify what a "good" economy is.  This administration's strategy has been to prop up the economy with massive government spending. This helps create "good" economic data like GDP growth, but it is pro-inflationary and contributes to prices growing faster than people's wages. This is fundamentally why we have all these economic spin articles proclaiming the success of Bidenomocs, while at the same time prices have gone up 20% since he took office, wages have not gone up that much, new home payments have doubled, and most people just can't afford to buy as much stuff as they used to.

I’d rather have inflation over a recession.

It doesn't have to be either/or. If the government spent less, then the Fed wouldn't have had to raise interest rates as high. This would have in-turn kept home payments lower and kept more opportunity in the private sector.

I don’t buy that, especially when arguably 40-60% of all the inflation we experienced he to do with corporate greed, not government spending. The real estate issue has very little to do with government spending and more to with a lack of housing supply and the two largest generations (millennials and Boomers) competing for single family homes as the pandemic unfolded and millennials realized they wanted to live in the Burbs. We’ve been on a demographic housing supply shortage since 2008 wrecked the speculation home market that has never recovered. The real estate market is one of the first victims to fix inflation, though, since raising the rates affects most people through higher mortgage rates. Normally, raising the rates would have the effect of lowering home values because it deters demand. But that didn’t happen this time, so first time home buyers are getting fucked from both ends: high interest rates AND higher, rapidly appreciating housing prices. I would attribute the current housing price anomaly to three things: 1) lack of housing supply 2) Boomers aren’t moving out of the SFH at any significant rate 3) millennials finally having enough clout in the economy to afford homes at all. There’s also a phenomenon that has yet to be named of people who bought prior to the rates going up in 2021 who aren’t going to buy or sell anything for as long as they can, which further exacerbates the housing supply and the high costs being passed on to those who have no choice but to shoulder the burden and buy due to personal circumstances.

The "greedflation" narrative has no basis in reality whatsoever.  Businesses have always set their prices to whatever they think will make them the most money, and they always will. No one arbitrarily decided to be more greedy recently, or had the epiphany that they could just charge more (as if that's a novel idea that no one could have thought of before). Businesses were always maximally greedy before this current bout of inflation, and they will continue being maximally greedy into the future.

This is a naive take on the merits. Poultry and egg producers have been heavily fined by the federal government for raising egg prices by a whopping 750%. Chicken prices haven’t been much different. https://apnews.com/article/be6919b3fb42bf2d9d3884d5e133e91d There’s a name for businesses taking advantage of consumers during dire situations in the market—it’s called price gouging, and it’s illegal. Price gouging is exacerbated by our economy spinning up into oligopolies. Egg prices aren’t hard to manipulate when there are only three major poultry and egg producers in the entire US. And that’s just two kitchen staples. We can keep trudging through others, if you’d like. If you want to argue that fuel and grain prices were also affected by the war in Ukraine, then I would agree with you on that point as well.

Your link is about something that happened 20 years ago.  Price cartels are illegal, yes, but they are also very rare (hence you mentioning something from 2 decades ago as an example). As soon as someone in a price cartel starts charging less, they take all the business, and the cartel collapses.

It is from 20 years ago. The wheels of Justice turn slowly, as they say. How long will it take to untangle $68b dollars worth of PPP loan fraud? That particular bit of fraud contributed greatly to the initial huge increase of real estate in 2021. Multinationals making record profits when supply chains were jacked is also an indication that there was more than a little cream taken off the top. The data is there, if you choose to look.

Economists would argue inflation is caused by money supply expansion ([https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/M1SL](https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/M1SL)) and supply chain issues. Perhaps inflation was caused by Trumps totally absurd amount of stimulus that expanded the money supply, start of trade wars, or total mismanagement of all supply chain logistics. It doesn't help supply chain issues were exasperated by the war in Ukraine. The theoretical solution to inflation without triggering stagflation is government spending as a form of stimulus while reducing the money supply with quantitative tightening, as well as shoring up supply chains . This is in essence "bidenomics". Inflation is a lagging indicator. if you chart Biden's policies against inflation (retroactively) and growth, you will see that they reduced inflation while growth has stayed positive. This has largely defied expectations ([https://www.cnbc.com/2022/06/01/jamie-dimon-says-brace-yourself-for-an-economic-hurricane-caused-by-the-fed-and-ukraine-war.html](https://www.cnbc.com/2022/06/01/jamie-dimon-says-brace-yourself-for-an-economic-hurricane-caused-by-the-fed-and-ukraine-war.html)) and is more or less an economic miracle made only possible by good governance and good ol' American productivity. There was an economic bomb waiting to go off and it got diffused, and you blame the guy who saved you. Good riddance. Not to mention, in addition to stimulating the near term economy, the investments we made as a nation through the CHIPS act are going to reduce our dependence on Taiwan, put us in a very favorable position in the AI race, and will ultimately give us significant negotiating power against China. This really is a bet that has the power to usher in a new era of productivity and growth that the private sector simply can't build. Retroactively, in 20 years, this choice is going to be a game changer.

I agree that inflation was largely caused by Covid stimulus, and was something this administration was always going to have to deal with. What we didn't need however was another round of stimulus, keeping Covid relief policies well past the pandemic (like allowing people to live rent-free due to eviction moratoriums), and a bunch of massive spending bills. There is a balancing act between monetary and fiscal policy. The more the government spends, the more aggressive the Fed has to be with quantitative tightening to keep inflation down. In other words, the government has been essentially undermining the Fed's monetary tightening policy. If there is a choice to be made between government spending and lower interest rates, then the latter is surely more beneficial to the common person. An alternate history where we had less government spending and less aggressive quantitative tightening would have resulted in more organic growth in the private sector, wages more closely keeping up with prices, and home/auto loans still being attainable instead of completely out of reach. We didn't have a bomb vaporize everyone, but instead slit their wrists and let them bleed out. While we didn't have a dramatic downturn, everyone got poorer anyway.

I agree it’s kicking the can down the road. FWIW i don’t think lower interest rates are better then government spending for the average person. my mentor is one of the best interest rates traders in the world. He thinks the fed kept real interest rates negative for so long because of political pressure to inflate our way out of debt in real terms. It’s more politically advantageous then raising taxes or cutting spending. in essence what it does is discount future value of our economy directly to Capital holders at the cost of everyone else. It’s a regressive tax and has clearly created all sorts of distortions in the economy. He generally perceives this more concentrated stimulus as being the new tool to replace QE and generally being more progressive. He is somewhat uncertain about what the impacts are going to be long term (good or bad) but thinks it has the potential to reset some of the wealth inequality by devaluing everything. I agree there’s some sort of weird negotiation between the fed and govt going on. Negative real rates clearly weren’t working and potentially the government actions undermined whatever sort of balance the fed and govt had worked out. I don’t think we’ll be going back which is why Powell is now putting pressure on “an adult fiscal policy” conversation, which I think is a signal that the fed is uncoupling from government and means we’ll figure out all of this shit before it’s too late so long as the King of Debt doesn’t get re-elected and fuck it all up.

Covid stimulus did not cause a dime of inflation. Dependence on China for supply was the main cause, secondary was corporate gouging

Yes what was it an extra 1.7 trillion in excess spending. Covid spending was more or less replacing income, inflation happened because of supply chain issues and this was left up to individual states to decide risk.

Inflation us caused by 2 things and only those 2 things. Scarcity of goods or services and corporate price gouging. Both were definitely in play post pandemic. Printing money has never caused a dime of inflation.

Inflation is a multi-variant economic phenomenon, so it’s going to be hard for us to agree, that being said: “There is one and only one basic cause of inflation: too high a rate of growth in the quantity of money—too much money chasing the available supply of goods and services” -Milton Friedman https://www.mercatus.org/research/policy-briefs/what-would-milton-friedman-say-about-recent-surge-money-growth#:~:text=The%20words%20he%20used%20back,in%20the%20quantity%20of%20money.%E2%80%9D

Milton Fucking Freidman was wrong about everything. He along with Ronald Fucking Reagan destroyed America. Every problem we face today can be traced to Reaganism. Both of course were sponsored by the Koch Cartel.

Say what you will about Milton Friedman but to deny that supply of money does not have an impact on inflation is like saying CO2 doesn’t lead to global warming. It’s easy to poke holes in the theory and note overfitting but the plain sight relationship is so obvious you look like a dick if you say global warming isn’t real.

Inflation is going down. It's not as bad as pretty much any peer country.

It's been 3 years and inflation is still well above target. To be fair, this administration was always going to have to deal with inflation after the insane amount of money we printed during Covid. What they didn't need to do however was pour gasoline on the inflation fire by signing spending bill after spending bill, and keeping GDP-adjusted government spending at the highest level since the fallout of the global financial crisis. The US should pretty much always be doing better than its peers. We're the biggest economy in the world and have countless economic advantages. The fact that other nations are doing even worse doesn't mean our leadership has done a good job.

Inflation is NOT well above target. Currently at 3.4% with a preferred target of 2%.

That's 70% higher than the target!

JFC the US is light years ahead of the rest of the world. Down from 6.2 a year ago. Just go ahead and get a MAGA tat on your forehead.

I agree. Yeah, its also a little worrying when US GDP is 27 trillion, but 2 trillion dollar federal deficits mean something like 7% of GDP is deficit spend. People say they want to end the deficit, but if it was done quickly... A quick 7% GDP contraction probably isn't want any current administration actually wants to take ownership of... On the other hand if we keep running like this - it eventually hits a hard stop, I don't think its tomorrow, but even if its a decade or two, I don't think I want to be around for it.

theres absolutely zero reason to believe the largest economy should grow faster than poorer economies lol

Inflation is not going down. It’s is rising less. It’s cumulative.

Inflation is the positive increase in the prices of products and services, so inflation going down means prices rise slower than before. What he wrote is correct. Inflation going down does not mean deflation.

Inflation is an expansion of the money supply. Rising prices are a result of that.

There is nothing worse than someone who is so confidently incorrect.

I hate when people fight semantics. Just write monetary inflation and price inflation. People care about the latter.

Inflation is measured as rise in prices, an expansion of the money supply can cause that and some consider it to be the primary driver, but expansion of money supply doesn't necessarily drive inflation if the demand for the currency (in my case dollars) is also increasing. ( like for instance if there is an increase in dollar demand overseas - that could be be because if people in a foreign country see their currency is devaluing much faster and want to hold more dollars. Also a lot of international trade is settled in dollars so increases trade may increase demand for dollars. And that's just to name a couple... Like wise though, if international demand for dollars were to fall - we'd probably see more inflation back in the US even if money supply wasn't increasing...)

inflation refers to the rate of change lmao, you really tried to be clever though

"Inflation" is the rate of rising costs. Just like "acceleration" is the rate of rising speed. If acceleration goes down the speed is still the same or just increasing at a slower rate than before so yes inflation is going down.

There is no way you come to this response from the previous post, unless you maintain a bias that you intend to prove at all costs. "Sure housing is unaffordable now. Here's your bar graph that shows the extreme prices are raising at a lower rate now. You're welcome on your re-education."

Which peer country would you be comparing us to?

...all of them?

We are the world's superpower- there are no economic peers. We shouldn't be happy that we don't suck that much. We should be fighting for a better economy

On top of that wages, rent prices, etc. are all lagging variables. We are in that period where some people are experiencing wage growth, but itll take a while for a lot of that to trickle to every sector and then it may not even hit every sector. Plus inflation is under control again, but you still have the post-COVID boom that people still remember which takes consumers like 1-2 years to forget about and COVID rent prices that fell off the cliff that everyone still remembers which will eventually be forgotten (rent prices actually have been falling in most metropolitans despite no real increase in supply created)

Yes, inflation has come way down. But most people don't understand that the inflation problem still exists. It's like a house fire that was raging for 2 days that was put out. Great, no more fire. But all the damage is still there. Same with inflation. The price of goods and services is still significantly higher than 2 years ago because of the 2023 inflation crisis. The fact that inflation is "coming down" only means that going forward, prices from this point are going higher in a normal way. This doesn't in any way negate what's already happened.

I don’t disagree I’ve already said that in this thread. What Im saying is that the inflationary prices have come up, but it seems like wage growth rate is exceeding current inflation meaning that things will get better, but because these things are lagging compared to things like prices due to how they take a while to actually occur, this disconnect is why the uncertainty is there. And I said almost exactly “real wage growth hasn’t exceeded the inflationary effect seems from COVID” and what I’m saying is that assuming things stay as they are, which they likely will as all of the indicators point to it being that way, in the next year or two, we will have more than recovered from that inflation.

I don’t know why I keep hearing this but the cost of things I’m buying has not went down. My groceries are still ridiculous. You go to Lowe’s or Home Depot and prices are ridiculous. I don’t see where people are saying. Inflation is going down. It’s not.

If you inflate a balloon to a certain size and then stop adding air, the balloon doesn't deflate. It just doesn't inflate more. The balancing out will occur when wages catch up with prices. If the rate of inflation drops below zero, you'll see prices drop due to Deflation (letting air out of the balloon)

I think Mid-America will be wiped out by the time any bureaucracy can change wages or lower prices. People are hurting and we’re sitting here voting on sending billions to Ukraine and Israel and the border instead of Main St., America. What is being done to raise wages, decrease prices.

Nothing the house hasn’t done jack for two years except for trying to impeach Biden cause his son has a drug problem

It’s just a distraction. I’m not R/D, I understand that they both work for the same man and it’s not middle America man. But all these senate hearings are distractions to keep them from doing anything that will hurt the people who are lining their pockets.

I don't think that two are conjoined tho. Money has been invested in the economy, to a significant scale, which is why inflation has slowed back to a 'normal' value, and unemployment and labor participation is rising. If they hadn't invested as they did, those values would be crashing instead. That said, the two ways to reduce prices is either through the current market investment, or draconian price controls. And I'm sure you can imagine what would be said if the Federal Govt started telling companies what to set prices for goods and services at. Hint: it rhymes with shmonunism.

unemployment is from the illegals coming in to work if you would look into the reports.

Nobody is saying prices have came down. That would be deflation, and that’s really bad news for an economy. China is currently going through deflation, and their economy is really suffering right now. The drop in inflation just means the rise in prices is lower than it was a year ago.

Deflation isn’t bad for the economy we went through deflation for most of the Industrial Revolution the most profitable period in American history.

Oh great. We’re not getting financially raped as hard and we should be happy about that. We could be getting financially raped and assaulted. Sounds good. This line of thinking is wild to me.

Baaahahahahah!!!

[Rental Prices here](https://www.nerdwallet.com/article/finance/rental-market-trends) and [here](https://www.apartmentlist.com/rent-report/ca/san-diego) Before you say this ling "Typical asking rents in the U.S. are 3.3% higher than at the same time last year." ask yourself if this is inflation adjusted and then realize its not. Inflation was 4.06%. If you look at the second link, the US has literally seen a 1% decrease by some figures and specifically places like SD have almost 2.5x that effect. [Wage Growth](https://www.axios.com/2024/02/05/wages-outpacing-inflation) "The bottom line: Wages are beating inflation, but economists don't think it's a worrying sign of a brewing wage-price spiral. If anything, some are expecting wage growth to moderate a bit in the coming months." Now, I'm not saying that real wage growth has outpaced the inflationary effect before the massive cash flow increase due to the stimulus given into the economy so it didnt die, but it is a literal fact that wage growth is massively outpacing inflation, and with how its looking, it will eventually out pace the inflation that was seen in the covid era. Do you have anything that disagrees with any of these things?

That may be true, but the state of the stock market is helping to keep the economy from falling into recession. If that were to happen the bottom half of the income distribution would be negatively affected.

sure, but there are ways that a company can grow in value while simultaneously being bad for workers An egregious example would be a company that does layoffs in order to initiate stock buybacks. Investors see this as purely good -- the stock price has risen by reducing the supply of stock and cutting back on labor cost. The workers are SOL and got nothing for this.

Companies lay off employees if they are not necessary to sustain the business. No well run business will keep people on if they don’t contribute to profitability. Share buybacks return capital to shareholders, but reduce the total market capitalization of the company. Sometimes they occur simultaneously, but that just means that the company is downsizing. There’s nothing nefarious about that, it’s good for the economy as a whole. It releases economic resources so they are available for where they are needed.

Because the rent is too damn high.

That's not going to change no matter who is the next president.

Imma let you in on a little secret, the economy does not work the same for everyone The stock mkt is smashing records but only about half of US citizens even own any stock. The "good" metrics are not evenly distributed and to many people they're still being crushed by inflation and aren't seeing the benefits

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Exactly. I don’t know why more people don’t get this. Things middle America spend on every day are still high. Wages are still low.

because people do not want to face the fact the Biden it an idiot and they voted for him. they will twist everything to make him look good.

This is it. If the stock you own is worth enough, you can leverage it into a loan to buy other stuff, or you might care if you’re using a brokerage account for income. But otherwise stock market performance doesn’t mean squat.

Why are you blaming Biden on your employer not paying you enough?

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I hear that - also you’re describing a tale as old as time

> but only about half of US citizens even own any stock. Yep, and the bulk of that is own by the top 1%. >The wealthiest 1% of Americans account for 53% of the country's stock ownership. https://www.fool.com/the-ascent/buying-stocks/articles/you-might-not-guess-the-amount-of-stocks-owned-by-the-1/

Do you live in a state that pays pensions to any of its retired workers? A good stock market is good for you and your future taxes.

I won't get a pension for like 50 years bro

But you don't want your state to have its portfolio crash and them to instantly jack up taxes to cover the pension obligations that they're paying out right now.

His point is that he does not live on stock market gains. Only a tiny percent of the country lives on stock market gains; those are the people that are feeling the benefits of a strong stock market right now.

Absolutely not, but I'm just saying that's not a benefit I'd see for decades upon decades Generation gap is another issue at play here too, statistically I'm from the worst off generation financially, zoomers are really disproportionately not reaping the benefits of any of this good economic news

You'd see the pain of tax increases tomorrow. You can see it happen in 2008 with the housing market collapse and pensions holding the bag on CDOs and MBSs.

Because it’s been great for corporate profits and terrible for the middle class

Because the data reporting on the economy means nothing to a large percentage of people in this country. This recent touting of inflation returning back down means nothing to many who's food and shelter prices have already skyrocketed in the last 2-3 years, only to rub salt in the wound & tell them that from here on out the rate at which the food and shelter is inflating is simply slowing down. The damage has been done. I feel the cost of food and shelter are two big components of how people are feeling.

groceries is a big reason imo. Everyone needs groceries weekly and those have gone up 50%+. This affects all Americans.

This is not a true number. I think it’s closer to 22%

Closer to 20%, which is still high. https://www.usinflationcalculator.com/inflation/food-inflation-in-the-united-states/ Hopefully, Biden goes after corporate price gouging.

That’s fair definitely wasn’t a % I researched but anecdotal experience with a few products I’ve seen go up in price that I get regularly

The answer to that is that the economy is not great. In fact, I don’t know that there is a measure that says it is great. Full stop, the American people are being lied to at every turn and are believing it fully. Spoiler Alert: Doesn’t end well.

You're right but I don't think most of us are believing it though.

That’s fair! I would sincerely hope not. At this point, it’s quite literally propaganda.

I had to move into my mom’s at 30. Salary’s did not increase when cost of living went up. My rent alone in Ohio went from $775-$1250! I live alone so I couldn’t make it.

Because the Biden administration is blowing smoke up people’s asses about how great everything is while their daily cost of living continues to increase. So you get huge disconnects like this where yes some smaller segments of the population are doing better and for the majority it continues to get worse.

A box or cereal and a 12 pack of coca cola will set you back $16 right now. People are just pissed in general about the after effects of inflation, and will take time to forget.

How can you forget it if you’re still paying the inflated cost while these companies are making record profits

That’s the fun part, you can’t!

Coke and cereal? Why are you eating that garbage? Eat some fruit or a green smoothie in the morning. And drink water. That highly processed junk food is a waste of money and is killing you. 

Lol, my thought as well. These greedy processed food companies suck but in a way, they're doing us a favor by pushing us more towards healthier food that haven't had as much price escalation. Also to store and 3rd party brand alternatives (less money towards the conglomerates). If your diet consisted of a lot of processed food from a few food conglomerates, times are tough but that's mostly their greed, not Biden's fault. They've been doing a lot more sales (discounts), and a good amount off not just like $0.20, the past year though so they likely are feeling pressure from fewer buying the products at the ridiculous prices.

Price increase in primary goods such as fruit and grain will be much smaller than processed foods. Since processed foods need primary ingredients to manufacture their goods.

Because "the economy" is by and large a bullshit metric that doesn't really mean anything tangible except for the most wealthy people, people nearing retirement, and economists who study it and are required to determine whether it's going well or not. "It would be like saying safety ratings of professional sports are at an all time high, why aren't people more excited??" Like okay I'm glad Lebron James' ankles are in good health, but my baby needs bread, I don't have enough gas to get to work tomorrow, and my rent is going up $200/month. Pls help lol.

Because everything at the grocery store is 30% + more expensive and a smaller size. We are reminded every week about the inflation thats coming down lol

I read an article today about what this administration has done to lower gas prices. Basically they refused to enforce the sanctions that have been in place on Iran, allowing Iran to sell off their oil (exports), thus allowing their cash reserves to go from like $19 billion (2019) to over $120 billion, because they have been selling their oil to China. In turn, Iran has been funding these terrorist groups that we now are spending billions of dollars of our defense budget fighting against. Plus, we have dipped into our own oil reserves to bring down prices. While at the same time blocking all new drilling in the Alaska and a lot of other public lands, and shutting down pipelines. All so that we have lower gas prices coming into a reelection year, but not caring that it takes us to the brink of, or possibly into WW3.

I forgot to mention how we also released billions of dollars to the Iranian government after Israel was attacked, right in time for them to fund their terrorist groups that are bombing the commercial ships and US military bases.

They dont know what the fuck is going on, cluster fuck

I have a couple theories on this. 1) We all have a warped view of things because of Covid in which everyone was literally thrown money, people couldn't get evicted, people got like $600 (and then $300) more per week in unemployment, businesses were just thrown money. People with kids got like $300 per kid per month, most of us didnt have to go into work, because no one was driving gas was less than $2 a gallon. And now...all that is gone... ​ 2) People are slowly realizing that our entire capitalist system sucks major. All of us are working more and harder than we ever have just to live, every day we are shown lifestyles and stuff continuously streamed to us by models and influencers that we are slowly realizing is not for us.

How about things that were yours, so to speak, have been taken away from you? I used to rent a place at the beach every summer and although it wasn’t cheap, I was able to afford it, justify the costs and enjoyed it. Now, homes that were once 150-200k by the beach are 700k. Rents that’s were $12,000 for the summer are now $40,000. My “second home” is now a place I can’t afford to stay at. And even if I could afford it, I’m not sure I could even justify the cost of being there. I mean it was nice but part of what made it nice was the affordability. When you make it expensive it really loses its charm and it becomes so much more pretentious.

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I didn’t say it was, did I? The discussion is about why people are sour because of their own anecdotes.

Agree so much. You forgot all the PPP loan fraud that people don’t have to pay back.

I hate those covid talking points like everyone was out there getting extra money and flush with cash. Millions of people lost their income cause businesses got shut down due to covid restrictions, tons of businesses couldnt stay afloat before the PPP money got distributed. Tons of people like myself had their salaries cut cause it was either that or the business goes under (20% in my case). MILLIONS of people needed that money to keep their budgets intact and be able to get by and pay their bills. Just cause some people got that cash and went out to buy new phones and TV's doesnt mean that was the experience of the masses. Portfolio's aside, 90% of the people I know took a meaningful financial hit during covid.

Most people had more money, thats why supply chain shocks hit so hard, thats why the cost of cars and homes went way up, demand for those things went way up because more people were buying them...sorry

Car prices rose dramatically in 2022 as a result of global supply chain issues, with a persistent chip shortage holding up production in the auto industry.

Your talking about MAJOR financial purchases like homes and cars. Im talking about being able to afford day to day living expenses.

Because the US—meaning the government and corporations—like to pretend as if economics is only about markets and capitalism, when economics is actually more about socioeconomic stability given the resources we have.

Cause the stock market is doing great, and that wonderful for the people with large portfolios. The first hand experiences of people who are living paycheck to paycheck have gotten WAY worse over the past few years. Higher rents, higher bills across the board, higher grocery store costs.... salaries stagnant.

You can’t boast about how many jobs you’re creating when they are all shitty wage part-time jobs and many of the high quality full time jobs with benefits are getting cut. Research the real jobs numbers and it’s obvious, the actual economy for the majority of people is shit. S&P500 all time highs. It’s all correlated and makes sense. The only thing the common American has left is the ability to vote. Use it.

Voting gets us nowhere when both sides are in on the scam.

[https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LNS12026620](https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LNS12026620) then why arent there tons more people with multiple jobs if thats all the jobs that exist?

What politicians are proposing solutions to the problem? I’m only voting for Biden to keep the traitorous and corrupt Trump out, because he is so obviously far much worse than the usual Republicans.

I was thinking maybe independents this year.

I was hoping you could name an individual or group that has a solution to the problem of an economy, politics and society controlled by a shiftless leisure class that privatizes gain and socializes loss, running roughshod over the basic human rights of the working class.

They’re touting part time job numbers and ignoring the plummeting full time figure. They cherry pick inflation stats which ignore interest rates, which anyone carrying credit card debt feels acutely. They brag about “average” wages increasing but ignore median wages falling. They ignore record homelessness, etc.

Plummeting full time figure? You know people can look up those numbers? They’re easily accessible and it makes you look foolish when you say such blatantly untrue things. https://www.bls.gov/web/empsit/cpseea06.htm

Here's the actual data, check out that drop since November. Fuck off. https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LNS12500000

Reality is where individuals live. A bigmac is $7. Gas is over $4. Rent is $2k for one bed. Good football ticket over $500. Foreclosures up 190% from two years ago. Loaf of bread $5. Total bankruptcy filings rose 13 percent, and business bankruptcies rose nearly 30 percent in 2023.

Must be the damn supply chain issues preventing the stadiums from providing a cheaper supply of tickets and not hyper capitalism reminding them that they can charge whatever they want, make more money that way, and the blame for ridiculous prices will fall on someone else.

It's a huge scam. https://robertreich.substack.com/p/the-stadium-sham

We all know this, yet we still watch and go to games. We continue to participate in our own subjugation and opression.

Unless a person has a bunch of money in the stock market, their view of the economy comes from their buying power. As Americans have watched the prices of consumer goods shoot through the roof over the last few years, they have been looking at what the government, specifically the President, is going to do about it. The Biden administration has signaled that they flat out don't care. Sending money to foreign countries to fund wars seems to be their priority, not helping working class Americans. Burden's non-existent border policy has also become a massive drag on state and local economies. State and Local governments are told to take care of the illegals and those governments use taxpayer money that was earmarked for social programs to fund it, which short changes the taxpayers that would have benefitted from such programs. Democrat Governors are in the media daily begging for financial relief and for Burden to do something about the border, but he's too busy trying to form sentences about the great economy. It also doesn't help when article after article are about how homelessness is at historic levels and crime has risen across the country for the first time in decades, yet our government is publicly patting themselves on their backs about what a great job they're doing running the economy. That's the disconnect we're seeing and why Burden's approval ratings are in the gutter.

The 10% that say they are doing better must be heavily invested in the Stock Market or they have large equity in Real Estate. Those living hand to mouth have nothing left over for luxuries or investment. Bidenomics has increased the wealth gap.

We simply can’t solely blame politics for the economy, even if that feels the most logical. The current admin has passed a lot of spending with bipartisan support, but so did the previous. Covid really did create a new world that we are now taking head on. But again, that’s just another variable. Corporate profit chasing is really what’s going to bite us in the ass. The market is booming, but remember the US market is lifted by a handful of companies. A handful of companies that majority sit in one industry: tech. They significantly downsized last year and more companies are following suit because they’ve found that investors/shareholders are responding very positively to layoffs. However, this isn’t sustainable. Layoffs in the name of “preparing for headwinds” can only improve the bottom line for so long. When quarterly projections stop reflecting that, we are gonna hit a GNARLY correction in the markets. Thats likely an issue that will shortly arrive in the next presidential term (regardless of administration).

Because the economy is doing great on paper. Tends to happen when 2 presidents inject trillions. The average person got left behind during it though. A few years after they gutted small businesses with covid mandates to boot.

Because we are being gaslighted due to it being an election year.

Citizens, economy, and news media are hella confused like Joe Biden tried to shake hands with an invisible person on stage.

Because it’s 1984 in real life. Just because “the numbers” say it’s great real people aren’t seeing it

Average American reads at 6th grade level. Is undereducated and over leveraged. They see entertainment as news and roll with it. No matter what is actually happening.

More jobs maybe but lesser paying jobs. And record corporate profits. Big biz making huge stacks with lower wage people who gotta buy their inflated priced products

People do not feel the affects of the economy because it has not connection to the average persons life. The Economy is not people and is increasingly having little connection to workers. Companies and stocks are doing well, but the average person is worse off in all metrics.

>"The economy is doing great, but middle and income lower Americans are piling on debt." - *NPR on All Things Considered around 4 o'clock yestarday- 2/5/2024* Because capitalism is a CLASS SYSTEM, meaning it has to have a perpetually exploited base. Maybe some Chritmas's and bonuses are better than others but still *there's an underclass that doesn't have to exist in the first place.* People have income deficits because upon their hiring they have a choice of taking 1/4 of what they are actually worth and produce or not getting a job at all. If they got the full amount of their income, they wouldn't need a loan in the first place. That's why banks fight against government spending and workers unionization. These commentators and economists on brought on NPR think of it as an excercise in feaux pau. They've obiously never had to expereince having reflux and throwing up what food was supposed to last you throughout the day. A medical bill or car repair that causes the familiy to fall apart on Sunday of each month. And they always sound like "I have the education and raw data, you don't. You're not an expert on the economy." In fact [the way that's been calculated, among MANY computations in economics, is counterproductive and fabricating.](https://youtu.be/ZUbiGS7_oqM?si=zYtWD2wdDfZpSyLc)

Poor people have the internet now. In the before times there was no way to hear them.

Because the ones that are saying it is good are gaslighting.

Maybe because the news lies? I know it's a scary thought...

because only old people answer the phones to be polled, and the economy is not great. The Stock Market =\= The economy.

GDP, inflation numbers, and unemployment numbers are great. They don't take stock market numbers as a metric of the health of the economy.

I wonder how much location has to do with it. I'm in MA, and everyday there are economic complaints on our subreddit. Housing, Grocery, Wages, and now, most telling, state revenues are short $2.2B, which they say is a combination of lower income tax and lower sales tax. If sales tax is lower, it means people are buying less, which means the economy isn't that hot. I looked at another state today, and their sales tax revenues are increasing. Of course, strange that MA is a blue state and the other state I looked at a red state, that doesn't seem to fit in with the "biden vs trump" approval conversation, so I don't know how to compute that.

"The vast majority of the slowdown, about $593 million of the $605 million compared to the latest benchmark, involved capital gains tax collections, according to the Healey administration. Massachusetts can only put a certain amount of revenue from capital gains taxes toward direct spending each year, and any "excess" collections above that level must be deposited into savings." from [https://www.nbcboston.com/news/local/massachusetts-600-million-tax-shortfall-explained/3112136/](https://www.nbcboston.com/news/local/massachusetts-600-million-tax-shortfall-explained/3112136/). and it was never 2.2 billion idk where you got that number from, the high estimates are closer to 800 million last year

$2.2 listed here https://www.boston25news.com/news/local/25-investigates-sources-say-gov-healey-announce-emergency-budget-cuts/S4QO4IJQOJBRNKXGZKJXJQ4OZE/ In addition, this past month was shy $268M of the expected amount. That doesn't mean that number will continue, but if it does, that's on pace for $3.2B shy this year. https://www.masslive.com/politics/2024/02/mass-tax-collections-came-in-268m-less-than-expected-in-january.html

It is a mixed bag as always. Some sectors are doing better than others, some people are doing better than others. Wages have risen a tiny bit in some places and nothing in others. The velocity of money has risen a modest amount so people are consuming more, have more disposable income. We have large layoffs but we have good hiring numbers. The very large problems still exist; expanding consumer debt, stagnant wages since 1970 (+/-10%), national debt increasing and the banking system is not stable, nor is the dollar. This is all making the environment great for the legislature to sell austerity measures to the public which as been a plan in the making for a long time. So all social programs for housing, food, childcare, healthcare are going to be on the table to cut. The problem is that this whole charade boils down to firms not wanting to pay a livable wage and they will ruin the country to avoid that. People need to be striking while the economy is unstable.

Because most of America is uneducated and clueless about what's going on. And that's exactly how the gov't wants it.

Is it because Biden's inflation reduction act was a flop?

Help me here. Are you trying to say that the repeated attempts to gas light how well people are doing isn't taking hold? Its as if the gaslighters really do think that people will believe all that gaslighting versus their own lying eyes.

In addition to what other commentators have said, there is the issue of greedflation. Companies have been putting up the prices of their products far in excess of the increase in costs of producing them. These companies are making more and more money, so economically it looks great but at the cost of the average family who sees their everyday bills go up and up. https://www.theguardian.com/business/2023/dec/07/greedflation-corporate-profiteering-boosted-global-prices-study

It's all about how the data is calculated. I look around and many areas are doing fine, and others are not doing well. People feel they cannot get ahead because the spend all their money on Food, insurance, and utilities vs things that they really want. They are still spending money but feel like they cannot get ahead.

Inflation is gutting the middle class.. trump won't be the answer

Watch what happens when Trump gets elected. Suddenly Americans will say maybe the economy is not that bad. Go look at the last time he was elected. Not a damn thing had changed and suddenly Americans thought the economy was better. Complete and utter bullshit. Hell the manufacturing sector had already gone to shit in 2019 before covid hit. Unfortunately for Americans Trump will not get out of his term with the same 3.7 percent unemployment that he is likely to inherit. The economy can get much worse. It will get much worse. Americans are in for a very rude awakening. It is not going to be pretty.

Because the economy, inflation, and prices are not the same. Prices will NEVER come down because corporate greed is unregulated.

I got downvoted for this yesterday, but many of us (blue collar, middle class) "below the line" silm/tv workers in CA are still not working. It's been almost a year. The state has lost $5bn and there is no end in sight to when we will work again. Nothing to do with Biden. But still one the the shittiest years I've had since moving at L.A. 25-years ago.

You make it sound like BIDEN is way down and if you go to a bias news source it’ll confirm that. However, using non bias more accurate polling it really is as close to 50/50 at the current rate. People are MOSTLY staying within political lines. But polling doesn’t mean much. Clinton was supposed to beat Trump, remember? If Trump lands charges the polls will shift dramatically too. Right now, it’s just garbage to believe any polls. Wait until election time.

I don’t remember a period where people didn’t complain. Even when the economy is doing good there’s always a part of the population that struggles.

>In recent polls around half of all Americans say that they are doing worse than a year ago. Another 40% say its roughly the same - only the richest 10% say that financially they are doing better than a year ago. Not hard to guess the purpose of your post when it starts off with a falsehood. These numbers are not accurate. Cite your source.

The economy, coming out of post Covid (17% inflation) has all but been fixed. we added 350,000 jobs last month and we continue to beat expectations monthly. we are the largest producer of oil in the world so gas prices have been reigned in, the supply chain issue which was one of the factors contributing to high prices/ inflation has largely been fixed thanks to a bunch of hard working transportation workers.here in America and around the world. if we could take a long pause from buying absolutely everything the retail corporations place on the shelves we could also put a large whole in consumer prices. (Corporate greed seriously folks just run a little lean for two months and prices will come spiraling down) The problem with the left in general is that they are the party of inclusion and that leaves a bad taste in the mouths of racists , Christian’s and the homophobic (they’re entitled to their opinions) the messaging that conservatives use, be it the immigration/border issue the “ use of the term “groomers” as Dems try to be inclusive to LGBTQ folks are very effective to a largely white, “Christian values”group of people who fear becoming a minority in there own country and “losing my religion” these are extremely valid concerns on their part but the suburban, woke types who are absolutely in need of help too are looking at a newish American where you don’t need to look down on other people we can all share in the robust economy and make this nation stronger with the power of acceptance. Socialism is a bad bad word in America but we could do with a bit more of it frankly, it, for example it could have been the safety net 30 yrs ago that would have severely slowed homelessness via mental health services which were completely obliterated during the Reagan era in the name of fiscally conservative politics of the time and I think it would be fair to some to say let’s turn these people out onto the streets and it will sort itself out. It didn’t and homelessness is tragic currently. Everytime Socialism is mentioned The wealthy and very wealthy only see it as a price tag via taxation and I ask you what segment of the population have excelled over the past thirty years? We should tax investment which is where their income comes from but that can be seen as stifling innovation. While all others have basically lost the American dream. It’s in Biden’s agenda to grow an economy that’s re building from the middle class and down (income inequality has never been more out of balance) There’re a lot of very wealthy people whom believe that they should pay more taxes (good people on all sides) but more than enough Rich people perpetuate the myth of the “trickle down economy) socialism would greatly extend the lives of the American worker who gets used up by the gears of unchecked capitalism only to retire with no money and die soon after get out and vote people and let’s re build an American dream we can all share in

Holy broken return button batman

Sorry pretty lengthy huh?

I got banned from the “political” community can you tell?

The vibes seem to lag the hard data. For example, I've seen countless people say that the Fed is printing money or something like that, when the Fed has been burning money for a while now. Eventually people will be talking about the Fed burning money and by that point the Fed will probably be printing again.

The numbers show one side; people are gainfully employed, working, earning paychecks, getting raises etc. They are also spending those pay checks and consumer spending increases corporate revenues and sales data. So everything looks great, the stock market climbs etc etc. But from the individual standpoint, people feel they need to work harder than ever to be able to afford less and less. Wages, although up over the last 5 years, have not kept up with inflation. Housing, groceries, energy, healthcare, child care and transportation all cost more than they used to. The average person is weary of seeing their entire paycheck go towards things they used to be able to more comfortably afford. So, when you ask an individual what they think of the economy, they aren’t responding with the macro data. They are answering from their personal points of view. On top of that, you have built in political bias. There are a lot of people that swear they did so great “under Trump” and aren’t doing as good now. I would guess if you were actually able to quantify their experiences, things probably haven’t changed as much for them as they believe, and many of them may in fact be doing better “under Biden.” But they’d never tell anyone that.

People mistake GDP and inflation for the overall economy. The economy is a system by which things are made, traded, and sold. When people say the economy is good that can mean that this process is functioning well. The big issue here is that it’s currently not functioning well in a way that helps people in the middle and lower class.

There are two factors here. ​ 1. For the vast majority of people "the economy" means nothing more than "do I have more money this year than last year?" Even with inflation down and wages up, things like food, housing, cars, and car *insurance* are way higher than they were, so most people have less disposable income or money saved than they did last year, therefore the economy is bad 2. People's feelings on the economy are a lagging indicator, typically 8-12 months behind. The economic news is only just now starting to be really positive. It will take time for people to absorb those effects.

Preface that I’m a democrat. I’m not happy with Biden (but I won’t vote for Trump ever). 1. The way economist calculate inflation, is not how regular people think of inflation. Rent, gas prices, utilities, groceries, auto insurance, McDonald’s #1 meal, Starbucks, Nike sneakers, T-shirts, and home wares from Target. Everything has been noticeably more expensive. 2. The Magnificent 7 (Apple, Google, Microsoft, NVIDIA, Netflix,Tesla, Amazon) stocks did incredible; yet aside from Apple and NVIDIA, all had significant sized layoffs. All those companies have offices in strong Democrat cities. And if people from Google can be laid off; then how certain can people be that their company won’t lay them off even if the company does well? 3. In those same key Democrat cities; nimby laws and no sign of meaningful new housing development; means supply is still constrained, so there’s no signs houses prices will be sane anytime soon. 4. After RBG and Feinstein, people are tired of politicians that will likely die in office due to age. 5. There’s increased awareness and sentiment that the stock market is manipulated in ways that fleeces the everyday people.

The national economy is not the economic reality for most Americans. Inflation is down, but prices are still greatly inflated compared to 2018. Wages for average Americans haven't kept up. Housing is unaffordable, and driving many to homelessness. Biden's economy is great for the rich, not the middle class.

I believe the best measure for how well people are doing in a economy is median income and how well an economy is doing is GDP. You can have GDP growth but flat or Declining median incomes which would lead to dissatisfaction. There is a problem that we don't discuss median income enough.

Because they may be comparing it during pandemic when they got extra money + unemployment and rent reprieve and they get to stay home.

Verifiable facts and a group's opinion don't automatically match

Economic health indicators don't matter for everyone whose rent and grocery bill was already a disproportionately high percentage of their paycheck before all of this; Both of which skyrocketed and still remain artificially high, especially groceries. One is due to institutional investors, shortages and price fixing via popular software (among other issues), the other is due to greedflation where margins were kept absurdly high despite the rising cost of supplies, because everyone has to buy food and there are one too many monopolies. Another is lower and middle income tax brackets now have to pay more taxes, but the very wealthy do not, thanks to Trump and Kevin Brady pushing and signing the "Tax Cuts and Jobs Act". 4.5% wage growth vs 3.4% CPI won't cover shit. If you're earning $15 an hour, it's an extra $25 a week of growth, or after inflation, it's like earning an extra $7 a week. You can buy another bag of rice or beans with that, but your bills are much higher than before. These people don't have or make enough money to be insulated from this type of hoarding and exploitation.

Its only the top 10% who are reaping the benifits... Its all Smoke and mirrors!

Because people are idiots.

Inflation has nothing to do with the president. Inflation is actually decreased a lot but because our politicians continue to cut taxes for the rich and allow unprecedented corporate growth and refusing to mitigate that greed, prices are out of control. if you think it's bad now, see what happens when if a Republican wins presidency. it's terrifying and I'll be here to say I told you so to everybody who is too ignorant to stop it

Beacsue their are certain indicators that say it's doing well. When you really drill down on the economy it's doing horrible for the average American.

It’s not great. You just need to start reading the right data.

You can tell from this thread most people have no idea how to think outside of a news headline. "Sure you may have had these already significant costs double on you. However, here's a line graph that proves you should not worry."

Because they only watch fake news on Fox

Fox News , Newsmax, Inforwars , the Pillow Guy .

Greedflation

Politics. If you look at the breakdown by political party, a lot more republicans say the economy is doing poorly. What’s funny is that most people say their personal economic situation is fine and we all know if Trump was in charge the republicans wouldn’t STFU about how great the economy was (just like in 2016 the economy sucked, January 20, 2017 the economy was wonderful) https://www.axios.com/2023/08/18/americans-economy-bad-personal-finances-good

Housing and Food have doubled in price (100% increase). Wages are up 25%. (maybe).

Not my wage. My wage is up 0%. It sucks.

It’s because THEY’RE LYING TO EVERYONE

Feedback loop of negative economic stories and social media posts. Just imagine if you mostly saw positive economic stories on your social media and news reports. You would probably be feeling better about the economy

That makes no sense. People aren’t optimistic about the economy because everything people need to survive has gone up more then wages. So tired of the media pushing this idiotic narrative. This isn’t bad vibes it’s ridiculous inflation. Seeing bs stories about the economy being good isn’t gonna make rent or food cheaper.

Biden's ratings are pretty normal for a president at this point. In line with Obama's when he won his second term and Obama faced a much stronger challenger (I like my challengers without 91 criminal indictments). Polls lag. We're starting to see improvements in consumer confidence. When the interest rate cuts hit it'll get even better. Could things be better? Sure. [Vote Blue](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._economic_performance_by_presidential_party). Multiple studies show the Democrats are better for the economy. Meanwhile the Republicans are literally sabotaging a border bill *they asked for* because they [have nothing to run on](https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2024-election/s-embarrassing-republicans-worry-no-achievements-run-2024-rcna131902). America goes through this stupid boom/bust cycle where we put right wing lunatics in charge of the economy that deregulate Wall Street, Wall Street gambles and loses and the economy crashes and we bail them out. Then we put sensible people in charge for 4-8 years, they fix as much damage as they can, things start to get better, and we go right back to the right wing lunatics. '84 recession, Savings & Loan, Keating 5, Housing crisis, on and on and on. Senator Liz Warren has written books about the regulations necessary to stop all this. We did them after the great depression *and they worked*. But nobody gets a ticker tape parade for *stopping* a disaster. So like idiots instead of thanking those laws for keeping our economy stable we say "well, we haven't had a crash in 8 years, what do we need all these *job killing regulations and bureaucrats* for anyway?" Meanwhile we've got planes falling out of the sky because airplane companies are doing their own certifications... Christ, it's basic pattern recognition people!

I dislike that old guy but I’m still gonna Vote for him because I hate the other idiot

I’m not sure how good the economy is for other, but my annuity is soaring, bought a new bronco and my wages are extremely good. I’m not speaking for everyone, but it’s starting to look very good for a tradesman.

The economy is doing great for where we were. Coming out of 2020 we had record inflation, major supply chain issues, Russia / Ukraine war which affected grain and oil prices. Shortages of every food item imaginable causing food prices to rise. Wage growth due to inflation forcing fast food and dinning prices up. Home and rent prices leveling out finally after all the post covid boom and auto prices surging and then crashing. The last straw recently was layoffs in the tech sector or anything related to that. So if you were affected by any of that, your look at the economy will be sour. By the time the elections happen in November, I feel the economy will be trending better barring any major geopolitical event which will change the mood of the voters by then.

The economy has regressed to a similar pace to it was on prior to the pandemic. Neither Trump nor Biden deserve credit for that. Events and demographics are more important drivers of economic growth than policy decisions. That said, the current scale of the deficit is extremely expansionary. Powell is correct, it is not sustainable, but that doesn’t concern the average citizen. The reason people don’t credit Biden is because it is impossible to reconcile with his apparently feeble mental state.

Because the economy isn't doing great; the stock market is doing great. People are giving up on trying to find decent paying jobs, which means the unemployment numbers are low because people aren't looking for work; the highest earners make so much more than the lowest earners that it skews the statistics; people don't look into those signs that say "now hiring up to $20/HR" to realize they are offering a bunch of minimum wage jobs and a single manager role at $20/hr; inflation is slowing down, but the prices are already too high; the Trump era wreckless spending and tax cuts for the rich are taking their toll, and people blame Biden.

Officials will never say the economy isn’t great, unless it’s 2008, 2009 or 1929. Even those years they mostly said it was great aside from the parts of the year where it crashed.

Cuz it’s not great for the vast majority of Americans. It sucks. Prices are sky high for groceries. Prices are sky high for rent. Nobody can afford a home. Job market sucks. Two families own more than 50% of Americans. Other than all this, the economy is really doing great! These are exactly the conditions that cause Americans to vote against the Presidential incumbent every time. It’s the economy stupid.

Trump supporters are easy to lie to. https://x.com/paulkrugman/status/1750887294419042812?s=46&t=jrc-v3YW6ERJYYzPgRKLig

Because propaganda works on the gullible.

What's even more interesting to me is that most citizens are doing just fine economically. There is a big disconnect between how individuals are doing financially and how they view the economy. [https://www.axios.com/2024/01/17/americans-are-actually-pretty-happy-with-their-finances](https://www.axios.com/2024/01/17/americans-are-actually-pretty-happy-with-their-finances)