The basic headline number tells the tale: 61% say the country is "off on the wrong track," while only 29% say "generally headed in the right direction." This has, as always, a major partisan component, but even among Biden voters only 46% say "right direction." Blacks (44% right direction) and Hispanics (31%) are more positive than whites (26%). I was somewhat surprised that women (24%) are more negative than men (33%).
What are people unhappy about? The issue flagged by the most repondents as the "most import" was "inflation/high prices," at 21% (only 11% said immigration and 4% crime). Across the board, the issues people say they care the most about, and worry the most about, are economic.
But 2023 was a fantastic, awesome, fabulous year for the American economy:
- Real GDP growth: 4.9%
- Unemployment rate: 3.7%
- Inflation (CPI, whole year): 3.2%
- Inflation (CPI, last quarter): 2.8%
- Stock market (S&P 500): up 12.3%
- Consumer spending: up 2.3%
- New construction: up 8.0%
- Blue-collar hourly wages: up 1.1% (inflation-adjusted)
- All hourly wages: up 0.8% (ditto)
- Productivity: up 2.4%
- Housing starts: up 2.1%
The best number from the YouGov poll is that 68% of Republicans think unemployment is a "serious problem" in the US. But unemployment last month was 3.7%, part of a string of 24 straight months under 4%. These are the kind of numbers we haven't seen since before the 1973 recession.
The story is similar when it comes to crime. According to NBC News, 77% of Americans (including 92% of Republicans) think violent crime went up in 2023, but actually homicide was down 12.8%, all violent crime was down 8%, and property crime was down 6.2%. That includes shoplifting, which also went down.
You could blame the news media, and I think they have been weirdly dark and negative, but they are dark and negative because that is what sells: Americans are hungry for bad news and wave off anything positive as irrelevent.
We feel, as a nation, that we are living under clouds of doom. One thing that fascinates me is that people fear lots of different things, but everyone is afraid of something. On the left people fear climate change, microplastics, housing costs, guns, and Donald Trump; on the right fear people fear societal breakdown, socialism, reverse racism, trans ideologies, and Joe Biden. What unites us is fear.
When pollsters call, we project this anxiety onto the economy, because we don't know what else to say to justify our fears. After all, it has traditionally been true that people are pleased when the economy is good and worried when it is bad. Not any more.
I can think of only two plausible explanations: either a changing media ecosystem, or the overall collapse of enthusiasm about the future. No matter how good things are for us now, we look to the future and worry.
4 comments:
34 trillion in debt, and the debt is rising faster and faster because we have an out of control budget. Latest deficit: 1.7 trillion dollars with nothing being done to change the trajectory. Over time we have devoted a larger and larger portion of our budget to interest payments, which means our ROI is insufficient to cover costs and overhead on our investments. And inflation has only made matters worse. Meanwhile we spend billions on two wars when that money could be put to better use here. I believe the debt sits in the background of our minds affecting how we view everything about our future.
Unemployment definitions changed in many countries, including USA. I am pretty sure it does not include "permanently discouraged" i.e. people who could find job so they stop searching.
https://www.shadowstats.com/alternate_data/unemployment-charts
The question is whether it's valid then to compare 1973 numbers and 2023.
I feel like a broken record, but just because "the economy" overall can be doing well, doesn't mean the bottom half of people in that economy are doing well.
At the low end, food prices are out of control, and have been for a while. Common staples for poor families like cans of beans often have doubled in price (or more), and often have also had the amount of product they contain reduced by a few ounces.
The average price of a gallon of milk went from $2.90 in 2018 to $4.10 in 2022, and despite some slight fluctuation it has remained at least $4.00 since. An inflation rate of 3% annually over those years does not account for this 37% hike.
If you look, you see the same kinds of numbers everywhere for cheap staple foods - bread, cereal, eggs, cheap meats / proteins, produce of all kinds... they all skyrocketed during the course of the pandemic, and have remained high - far higher than inflation can account for.
People at the bottom have been struggling to feed their families continuously for half a decade now without relief - and an overall blue collar wage increase of 1.1% (after inflation) is laughable in its absurdity.
And that's just food - housing prices are similarly ludicrous, having well outpaced inflation.
Gas prices rocketed during the pandemic and have stayed high - between 2015 to 2021, the average cost of a gallon of gas was never more than $3, but since then it has never been LESS than $3, and even hit an all-time peak in 2022 at over $5 a gallon.
It goes on and on - the common, everyday expenditures of the poor have all seen HUGE price spikes, well in excess of inflation, that have lingered for five years, despite some fluctuation.
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Meanwhile, wealthier Americans have seen much SMALLER price increases, comparative to what they were already used to paying. Going from paying $5 for a pound of chicken breasts for dinner to paying $7 is a lot less burdensome than going from paying $0.65 per can of beans to paying $1.40 each - on top of the basic privilege of being able to afford fresh meat as your meal protein instead of canned beans.
And that's not even considering that greater wealth makes it much easier to absorb rising costs to begin with - people who earn a bigger surplus on every paycheck have a much bigger "cushion" when it comes to making ends meet. Someone whose basic needs comprise 50% of their income and who is putting away $1000+ a month isn't going to feel the pinch as badly as someone whose basic needs comprise 90% of their income and who is putting away only $100+ a month.
Wealthier Americans also are much more likely to own their own homes, which is a MASSIVE advantage. Not only are they protect from spiraling rent costs.... I recently read that the average homeowner actually earns less money in their own personal income each year, than their HOUSE "earns" through appreciation in value in the insanity that is our current housing market.
If that doesn't tell you everything you need to know about the American economy and how deeply unhealthy it is right now, then I don't know how to help you.
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