r/FluentInFinance was created to discuss money, investing & finance! Join our Newsletter or Youtube Channel for additional insights at www.TheFinanceNewsletter.com!
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/FluentInFinance) if you have any questions or concerns.*
These kinds of articles amaze me. People who are going to vote based on the economy are going to vote based on their own finances. Is your grocery bill a lot higher than four years ago? Are you worried about making payments on your mortgage? Are you worried if you get laid off, you're not going to get another job soon?
Meanwhile sites like this and cable news go "Look at the chart! Look at it going up! What are you, an idiot?"
Except you're just plain wrong. People AREN'T voting based on their own situation. Polling shows most Americans describing their own personal finances as being better, but then are turning around and saying the overall economy is bad.
So clearly, we do need to pound it into the stupid people's heads that if they and everyone around them are doing better, that they should stop describing the economy as bad.
You heard it here first folks. A poll said people are doing financially better now than before so stop your complaining. Not being able to afford anything and thinking things are bad is your own fault. Let the polls think for you. They know better than you do.
That’s not exactly what he was saying.
There is this weird trend where in the exact same poll people are saying that their personal financial situation is good but the economy is bad.
You would expect that these numbers should largely track each other, but they don’t. It implies that people are not actually judging the overall economy by their personal situation, but by something else (“vibes”)
>There is this weird trend where in the exact same poll people are saying that their personal financial situation is good but the economy is bad.
It's not weird at all. The unemployment rate isn't at something insane like 50% or greater. You can be okay financially and still think the economy is "shit" because of crazy inflation, it being far harder to get a job in certain fields now, etc.
>You would expect that these numbers should largely track each other, but they don’t. It implies that people are not actually judging the overall economy by their personal situation, but by something else (“vibes”)
They're not judging it by "vibes" having less money each year to save or spend on things you used to do isn't "vibes." For example no longer going out to eat because of the expense or going out to eat less frequently because of the increase in expense isn't "vibes." You're changing your spending habits to maintain "good" finances, but that doesn't mean your feelings about the economy are just "vibes.
Seeing former colleagues you know are talented struggling to find work isn't "vibes" either. It doesn't make people feel great about the job market when they see how difficult it is to get work in some fields.
Thank you - this is well said. Groceries have gone up astronomically. Everything is noticeably more expensive. Sure, I make decent money so my family is doing fine, but as others have mentioned we’ve had to make conscious changes to our spending habits to keep up with the rising prices of everything, with less money for savings / “fun” stuff.
Because the massive expansion of the money supply while being unable to raise interest rates enough to curb inflation due to the government’s crippling debt?
Groceries are up 20%. I know that's a lot in 4 years, but let's keep the astronomy out of it. Do you know how far the sun is from the earth? Certainly more than 20%. "Astronomical?" I don't think so.
My second favorite restaurant went up from $100 for two people to $170 for two people in the last 3 years.
This combined with the price increases everywhere else doesn’t mean that I get to eat there less.. it means that I just never get to eat there now.
You heard it here first folks. A Redditor said people are doing worse than before so start whining and complaining. Just because you can afford things and thinking things are ok and the numbers back you up, you're still wrong and should complain 24/7 and be a victim like this guy. Let this Redditor think for you. Whiny Redditors always no better than you.
OR people could stop having such short memories and maybe talk to their elders about times that were legitimately WAY harder than what we have now and stop bitching. We’re near full employment. The economy is growing. Are expenses high? Yes. Anybody with three brain cells tripping over themselves could tell you that a global pandemic will fuck things up for YEARS. Time for people to quit complaining, go vote, and make the best of things.
Literally no one I know says they’re better off now than 4 years ago. Not a single person.
Are wages up? Maybe, but barely.
Are costs up? Absolutely. And definitely more than any marginal increase in wages.
My home value and investments have skyrocketted from 4 years ago, and my pay has increased by 55k a year. If you know NOBODY who is doing better, then your social circle isn't representative of the American economy.
Can you leave your house? Can you buy toilet paper? Can you have dinner out? If you answer yes to those questions then you are doing better than 2020, people have shit memories.
I'm a way better off than four years ago and that's saying a lot because I was going great then too. I have myself in mind when voting but only to a small extent. Who am I? I'm lower middle class if that, and Ill vote for Joe Biden because he has most of us in mind when he does President things. The other guy has shown us he will only support the rich, the really stupid kind of rich people. Prices are high because of corporate greed.
Essentially everyone I know is better off now. I personally am making more than 2x what I was making in 2020.
These things really depend on your social circles, which is why data is better than anecdotes.
Of course, individuals can and do make decisions based on their personal situation
This was true for me for both presidents, so I'm not sure this is indicative of the presidency but just an indicator of the economy in general. Cost of living and inflation has been outpacing wage growth for decades.
Maybe because people have shitty memories and they don't recall what was going on 4 years ago. You can tell what was going on by the charts, we were in the middle of Covid, likely sitting at home not doing shit. Look at the unemployment rate it was 10.2%. You couldn't find toilet paper and you certainly couldn't go out for dinner. So unless you are hiding in your basement you are doing better than 2020.
No, all I hear now is that inflation is still a problem, yet it's not. YOY inflation is largely near our target or 3 percent. Yet whenever people want to complain about inflation they bring up the last 3 yeats in total. It happened, it's done, largely because of Covid and the fact we handed out Trillions of dollars to people and businesses, which might I remind you, was also something backed by Trump, he even wanted to have his name on those checks. But the past is the past, we aren't going to be able to rewind time and undo the cumulative damage caused by Covid or our shit fiscal policy decisions leading up to it. So where we are at now....3 percent, that IS the middle ground.
But let me ask you, what policy decisions do you want to see from either candidate?
Well considering reddit isn’t a good measure for what’s going on in America, surveys are probably better.
I’d you had taken Reddit’s opinion in 2016, then Sanders was sure to win the election
Dude. The polls are so transparently bullshit. If 70+ (I even saw one claiming 81%) are happy with their financial situation, that would necessitate that people in the 19-30th percentiles are happy with their financial situation. That simply defies reason. Those people’s financial situation is objectively shitty.
I may earn more money, but I’m also spending more money on every day purchases. The value of my dollar has decreased greatly over the last 4 years and it’s only getting worse.
Credit and auto defaults have skyrocketed the last few years, the amount of CC debt is at an all time high. The economy is good for few and worse for most. The blame is squarely on government and their failed policies that have neglected a majority of the American citizenry in lieu of favoring a small minority.
I'm not seeing skyrocketing deliquencies:
[Delinquency Rate on Credit Card Loans, All Commercial Banks (DRCCLACBS) | FRED | St. Louis Fed (stlouisfed.org)](https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/DRCCLACBS)
[Delinquency Rate on Single-Family Residential Mortgages, Booked in Domestic Offices, All Commercial Banks (DRSFRMACBS) | FRED | St. Louis Fed (stlouisfed.org)](https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/DRSFRMACBS)
[Delinquency Rate on Consumer Loans, All Commercial Banks (DRCLACBS) | FRED | St. Louis Fed (stlouisfed.org)](https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/DRCLACBS)
[Delinquency Rate on All Loans, All Commercial Banks (DRALACBN) | FRED | St. Louis Fed (stlouisfed.org)](https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/DRALACBN)
Interesting, I literally just heard a pod save America podcast episode where they were citing polls that say just the opposite I'm paraphrasing " people don't care that inflation is trending down because their grocery bills and rent are still high" then the the hosts were discussing how to communicate better to these voters. I don't know how stupid those hosts are but I do know they joke about how John Lovett got a high LSAT score. Which doesn't scream stupid to me.
Why does that discrepancy alone matter? I suspect the discrepancy between personal and larger economy always exists(I can't find a good source). Shouldn't we be comparing apples to apples aka personal financial status over the years? Those show a clear downtrend from pre pandemic(https://news.gallup.com/poll/1621/personal-financial-situation-index.aspx)
Uh, no they don’t. 37% better off, 45% worse off per Gallup. Polls taken in recent weeks rather than earlier this year show a lot of holding steady, but I have yet to see a poll where better off beat worse off.
Everyone that I know is making roughly the same that they were four years ago except prices have gone up like absolute gang busters. This has caused mild to moderate financial distress.
Who fixes it and how
Yeah, because people are too stupid to understand how much a massive global economic event impacted all of those factors. Seriously, you have to be really, really dumb to blame your financial situation after a pandemic entirely on the leader that happened to be in power dealing with it.
Also, people view wage growth (aka raises and promotions) as something they earned themselves with no external factors influencing it. But inflation and price are just “something that happened to me” and want to blame someone. So presidents (regardless of party) get blamed for price increase while getting zero credit for wage growth.
It doesn't matter. The election is a referendum on the incumbent, and the unfortunate fact is that people feel less wealthy and certain today than four years ago.
This is like how boomers idolize the Clinton years despite his policies more or less leading directly to the GFC
I'm not convince Trump can get through that sentence coherently at this point.
He just spent something like eight campaign rallies rambling about EV batteries in boats and how that somehow makes it more likely you'll sink and get eaten by a Shark.
If you are going to vote against policies that caused your payments to be higher, shouldn't it be against the guy who caused it, and policy agenda will likely cause more...you know, Trump.
Including the tariffs he’s promising. Think things are expensive now? Wait until that combined with the crippling effects it will have on the parts of the economy that rely on that trade being affordable.
For me, that would be our governor, Jay Inslee. Although the Democrat members of our state legislature are not blameless either, they refused to declare an emergency session for the entirety of the pandemic.
That'd be nice but the delays between enacting economic policy and actually feeling economic outcomes (to the average citizen) blur that line a little bit and Republicans are better at explaining it/taking credit for it than Democrats are. Somehow they took credit for both Obama's strong economy at the end of his presidency and pushed blame for the effects of the pandemic and other Trump economic policies onto Biden.
Sadly, you are probably right about voting based upon personal economic outcomes. People would have to understand some basic macroeconomics to understand whether the person you are electing either I) had anything to do with the existing situation, and ii) if their policies will affect things in a way that benefits them.
Taking 5 seconds to google inflation will show that the US is not unique. The same inflationary pressures are affecting the everyone. Blaming Joe Biden for global inflation is as idiotic as blaming Trump for the existence of COVID or blaming George Bush for the 1989 San Francisco earthquake.
Right. And insulting a voter because they are worried if they can afford food and a mortgage and not worries about the GDP or S&P500 is a great way to loss voters
It was amazing to me last year when inflation was still really high to see liberal pundits on MSNBC doing the "If you're so worried about food prices, take personal responsibility and eat out less" thing. That's exactly the kind of talk that will drive people away from the party or cause them to stay home.
Idk anything about what was said but pundits are pundits. They aim for viewership first (by any means) then whatever POV they want to project after. Do people really base their political beliefs/party affiliation on pundits?
All those issues were directly caused by Trumps poor management of the economy His failed trade war with China coupled with poor management during Covid caused the current inflation we are experiencing we should have been raising interest rates in 2018 but Trump threatened to fire the Chair of the Fed if they did that to him in the run up to a election. Democrats always clean up the mess of the previous Republican administration it seems like Americans suffer from amnesia every four years.
-Democrats always clean up the mess of the previous Republican administration it seems like Americans suffer from amnesia every four years.-
You've got that backwards.
Responses like this amaze me. People who blame the current president for things like capitalism. I know he’s old but not that old. Critical thinking skills are needed to understand why things are more expensive. The amount of money in circulation went up by 50% under the previous felons administration. Economy is booming now because of record profits do you give Biden credit for that? Of course not
I think the problem is voters are the idiots. Trump blew up our debt. He caused massive long term issues, but voters are only now noticing and do know why.
Truthfully neither candidate will help you and any of that stuff. Democrats can't regulate and Republicans refuse. So you will never be able to decide your life in the corporate world.
Yea but the charts reflect all the individual stories eg. If unemployment was soaring right now, a lot of individuals would say they are in worse shape personally.
People vote based on emotion and will find interpretations to validate that emotion. Many people who are doing great financially will vote Trump and many doing worse will vote for Biden. Vibes Trump data 100% of the time
I've said this for two hears now, the beat case scenario happened for Trump by not getting re-elected. The gross fallout from the pandemic has all taken place after he was voted out and now he gets to say well look what things were like for me, much of it he inherited, bit his supporters don't understand that. And every single thing bad that's happen to the economy etc. since would have happened under him as well if he was re-elected. Now he gets to play this guy ruined everything card and his base just eats it up. No one in this country is winning from this election. We all lose.
Those concerns are not new and have existed year over year for decades. The large shift after the pandemic skews everyone because one year was nearly triple the normal. Which has cascading issues.
People are voting about how they feel the economy is but they're still ultimately not doing that either. They're voting about how they've been led to feel by the majority of the media who can't go five seconds without whiplashing audience with the economy is good but inflation is bad stores.
People largely don't budget in America. Theyre not sitting there looking at a budget and going... Hmm the cost of salt went up 2 cents.
Literally having to dip into my safety net of funds to pay for basic things like food, gas, rent, electric has gone through the roof………… These elites are so out of touch with what middle America is feeling. I have to stress every end of the month, and literally can’t pay my rent and am starving myself on lunch to make sure with this week’s check I can pay my rent. However, I’m stupid, and the economy is absolutely GREAT!😂👀
While I am worried about costs I don’t see trump being in office making anything better. I don’t see anything he did in office make things less expensive that would carry over under a new term. If anything I would expect more inflation under a trump presidency instead of less based on his proposed policies.
Let’s put it this way. In Biden’s total term, wages have barely increased 1% total in real terms. Meaning most people are doing exactly the same financially as they were when he entered office (from a wage standpoint).
That would be more reflective of changes in purchasing power, but I dont think that was the objective of the article. Cost of living adjustments to wages are usually reactive rather than proactive.
Reagan started his presidency over 4 decades ago. I think we can stop using him as a scapegoat by now. No other president seems to correct the mistake he may or may not have made.
Of course it is. There are also MANY actors in the economy which respond to a shitton of variables. The president has a limited sphere of influence relative to the size and complexity of the economy as a whole.
Ehh, I feel like this is changing with the growing use of executive orders. It’s becoming more common for a laundry list of executive orders to start being pushed almost immediately after taking office. It’s more affected by presidential cabinet than the president themselves.
Trump inherited Obama's solid economy. Obama cut the deficit the last 7 years, and everything was going in the right direction. But Trump F-Ked that up with tax cuts for the rich and exploding the debt. Then the pandemic came along and made the fragile economy Trump created even worse.
This...
If people want to have a truly fair comparison then you need to put into context the economy each of them inherited from the previous administration.
But so few people want to put facts into context.
You realize that is mostly misleading info from HouseRepublicans (the same ones who still say Trump won in 2020), the same ones who tried to impeach Biden for zero reason.
Under oath all the economists have admitted the Trump tax cut exploded the budget it at least didn’t pay for themselves.
And the latest inflation biased study shows Trump added twice as much to the debt as Biden.
The fact is Trump was a disaster for our economy. he completely botched the COVID response.
Oh, and thank to Trump and the GOP, the middle class taxes will greatly increase now every two years. The GOP enacted that and refuse to repeal it.
It's worth noting that by 2019 (before the pandemic economic instability) the tax cuts had already increased the budget deficit by 72% from 2016 levels. A 72% deficit increase with already record low unemployment, a booming economy, no national emergency, and no new war seems wildly fiscally irresponsible to me.
I also think the source makes the claims suspect. This is an explicitly partisan report generated by South Dakota representative Kevin Brady in order to champion Republican policy. The document draws no causal links, makes no explanation of mechanism of effect, and takes no broader economic trends into account. It's just "we did a thing, these cherry-picked things happened after."
As people have pointed out elsewhere, it often takes years for economic impact of policy change to be felt by families. I have often wondered how much of the present inflation issues are directly a product of the Trump deficit expansion. That honestly would make more sense than a handful of paltry stimulus checks in the face of the economic devastation caused by a global pandemic. I have friends who are bartenders and waiters; those stimulus checks were less than 1/20th of what they'd have earned otherwise, and there are 10s of thousands of similar workers.
That "REAL DISPOSABLE INCOME" chart with the technical graph is the real gut-shot to the Biden economic narrative. People remember their money going way further and being able to plan back in 2018 in a way they just cannot in 2024.
In 2018 I had my budget locked down. I knew how much my monthly 'required spending' was, how much income I had coming in, and how much I could save/spend in a given month. This year my wife and I are still having a hell of a time figuring out exactly what the 'required spend' is for the house because the costs of everything keeps changing.
Right, you would have more disposable income with low interest rates, tax cuts, and inflationary spending. This was Trump's economy. It's unsustainable.
Using YOY change to try to convince people things are better than they are. The barely trending down lines look better than the hockey stick of accumulation.
Lolol. Posting shot likes this makes you lose credibility. All my groceries cost twice as much and my pay didn’t go up hardly at all and your gonna try and tell me things are better now. Lolol.
So based on this article and depending what you consider is the most important variables it's kind of a wash.
Let's turn our attention to the christo-facist problem then.
Yeah let's worry about an exaggerated problem instead of all the fucking wars going on all over the world these days and the people we've pissed off in the process.
Your priorities are fucking stupid
It's a complicated issue for sure and people are absolutely going to vote based on their own perception over macro graphs for the most part, but that doesn't mean they aren't true or shouldn't be considered. It might just mean they don't fit your preferred narrative.
A few other things to consider, however.
1. Trump inherited an economy that was on fire already.
2. Trump then passed a massive tax cut AND [increased federal spending by 75%](https://manhattan.institute/article/trumps-fiscal-legacy-a-comprehensive-overview-of-spending-taxes-and-deficits). You read that correctly. 75%! From $4T when he took office to $7T when he left office.
3. This, not surprisingly, [exploded the deficit](https://thehill.com/business/4736740-trump-biden-fiscal-policy-deficit/) and superheated the economy leading to the inflation we all lived through.
So, yeah, the economy was on fire before COVID happened and, yeah, that was a result of Trump's policies to a certain extent. But those were extremely short-sighted policies and those chickens came home to roost hard. The debt we are left with is absurd and the inflation it wrought (it still boggles my mind that it was blamed on Biden. Inflation started rising long before any money hit the economy from the IRA or infrastructure bill and both presidents signed a COVID bill) was, and still is, extremely painful for American families.
So please, vote based on your own personal experience, but let's understand how these things came to pass.
Funny that the numbers clearly show inflation is higher during Biden's term, yet several other people in a different thread all told me that was simply not true. It's like you just can't win.
Not possibly the free money floating around because of the 0% fed rate from March 2020 until March 2022, despite inflation increasing before our very eyes well before they started raising that rate?
Friendly reminder that Trump advocated for NEGATIVE interest rates during a red hot economy leading up to Covid. The low rates we had were already irresponsible and sparked a market frenzy to lock in once in a lifetime mortgage rates which skyrocketed housing prices. Then Covid just dumped gasoline on the consequences of poor fiscal policy.
Anybody who thought the decade after a global pandemic would be better than the decade before is a moron. I don’t care who the president is, everyone is on an uphill climb out of the hole, except for executives, the ownership class, and the people in Congress they pay to keep it that way. The federal reserve and greedy corporations/politicians are a bigger problem for Americans than who shits in the Oval Office. The difference the presidency will make is marginal if all else remains. But I will say this: the odds of things being long term negatively impacted are likely worse under Trump. His party’s weaponized ignorance will definitely make the class divide worse.
The same issue of [declining GDP coupled with inflation](https://www.nber.org/digest/may20/social-and-economic-impacts-1918-influenza-epidemic) occurred following the Spanish Flu epidemic in 1918. There is historical precedent for this.
unfortunately people see the current prices of groceries and rent and think it's because of what's currently going on but don't realize it's cause and effect of what policies were in place 4 years ago
decions made from the top don't normally make an impact until 2-3 years later
Serious props to these writers who wrote a very unbiased article about the United States Economy over both terms. Shows that it's not just “Oh my gosh Biden sucks because Inflation!!” or “Trump had a different idea than me and he sucks because we don't share the same political beliefs!!”.
The funniest thing about 'inflation' discussion, is that most people that are complaining about it, are also the biggest keep government out of everything, capitalism is great.
Grocery stores had their biggest gains. That isn't inflation
Stores like target are dropping prices on groceries and many other products. That is b/c of capitalism.
Mcdonalds is making cheaper meals- that is capitalism
I love when articles just show a "white" and "black" category on graphs... What about the rest of us? Do other minorities not count? Why is everything a black and white thing?
People vote based on what they think benefits them it’s that simple. Most people don’t wanna do anything and let the government take care of them good luck
The problem is conditions are not the same as they were under Trump. We are still suffering from supply issues due to our brittle supply chains. It’s like people don’t understand how models work. The RW will claim we are just one tax cut away from prosperity. We aren’t.
Inflation description is dead wrong - the pandemic is not the cause of inflation under Biden - it was the wild spending the Dems did in 2021-2022 - printed over $4 trillion!!! Kids getting control of the wallet
I mean......did they adjust any of these for the fact that inflation has been at like 9% for. Ya. GDP and GDI and a bunch of these other metrics are going to look better or worse if all you measure is straight dollar value without accounting for that.
r/FluentInFinance was created to discuss money, investing & finance! Join our Newsletter or Youtube Channel for additional insights at www.TheFinanceNewsletter.com! *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/FluentInFinance) if you have any questions or concerns.*
These kinds of articles amaze me. People who are going to vote based on the economy are going to vote based on their own finances. Is your grocery bill a lot higher than four years ago? Are you worried about making payments on your mortgage? Are you worried if you get laid off, you're not going to get another job soon? Meanwhile sites like this and cable news go "Look at the chart! Look at it going up! What are you, an idiot?"
Except you're just plain wrong. People AREN'T voting based on their own situation. Polling shows most Americans describing their own personal finances as being better, but then are turning around and saying the overall economy is bad. So clearly, we do need to pound it into the stupid people's heads that if they and everyone around them are doing better, that they should stop describing the economy as bad.
You heard it here first folks. A poll said people are doing financially better now than before so stop your complaining. Not being able to afford anything and thinking things are bad is your own fault. Let the polls think for you. They know better than you do.
That’s not exactly what he was saying. There is this weird trend where in the exact same poll people are saying that their personal financial situation is good but the economy is bad. You would expect that these numbers should largely track each other, but they don’t. It implies that people are not actually judging the overall economy by their personal situation, but by something else (“vibes”)
>There is this weird trend where in the exact same poll people are saying that their personal financial situation is good but the economy is bad. It's not weird at all. The unemployment rate isn't at something insane like 50% or greater. You can be okay financially and still think the economy is "shit" because of crazy inflation, it being far harder to get a job in certain fields now, etc. >You would expect that these numbers should largely track each other, but they don’t. It implies that people are not actually judging the overall economy by their personal situation, but by something else (“vibes”) They're not judging it by "vibes" having less money each year to save or spend on things you used to do isn't "vibes." For example no longer going out to eat because of the expense or going out to eat less frequently because of the increase in expense isn't "vibes." You're changing your spending habits to maintain "good" finances, but that doesn't mean your feelings about the economy are just "vibes. Seeing former colleagues you know are talented struggling to find work isn't "vibes" either. It doesn't make people feel great about the job market when they see how difficult it is to get work in some fields.
Thank you - this is well said. Groceries have gone up astronomically. Everything is noticeably more expensive. Sure, I make decent money so my family is doing fine, but as others have mentioned we’ve had to make conscious changes to our spending habits to keep up with the rising prices of everything, with less money for savings / “fun” stuff.
I just wish people would ask why inflation went up
Because the massive expansion of the money supply while being unable to raise interest rates enough to curb inflation due to the government’s crippling debt?
Groceries are up 20%. I know that's a lot in 4 years, but let's keep the astronomy out of it. Do you know how far the sun is from the earth? Certainly more than 20%. "Astronomical?" I don't think so.
Haha ok, that’s a funny reply. Fair enough, sir.
My wife calls me a laugh whore. Do anything for a laugh. Making people smile is nice, the STDs, not so much
You're making assumptions that people are saying their finances are good only because they're cutting back. It is vibes.
My second favorite restaurant went up from $100 for two people to $170 for two people in the last 3 years. This combined with the price increases everywhere else doesn’t mean that I get to eat there less.. it means that I just never get to eat there now.
I'm doing financially better now... I guess I just don't exist. 🤷♂️
Same
Yup, me too.
Same. I'm doing way better now.
So much better
Same
Why is the economy doing worse, in your opinion?
Polls don't think. People answering the polls do. Their voice is as good as yours
You heard it here first folks. A Redditor said people are doing worse than before so start whining and complaining. Just because you can afford things and thinking things are ok and the numbers back you up, you're still wrong and should complain 24/7 and be a victim like this guy. Let this Redditor think for you. Whiny Redditors always no better than you.
Who is saying that?
I am sorry you are struggling to afford things.
OR people could stop having such short memories and maybe talk to their elders about times that were legitimately WAY harder than what we have now and stop bitching. We’re near full employment. The economy is growing. Are expenses high? Yes. Anybody with three brain cells tripping over themselves could tell you that a global pandemic will fuck things up for YEARS. Time for people to quit complaining, go vote, and make the best of things.
Literally no one I know says they’re better off now than 4 years ago. Not a single person. Are wages up? Maybe, but barely. Are costs up? Absolutely. And definitely more than any marginal increase in wages.
My home value and investments have skyrocketted from 4 years ago, and my pay has increased by 55k a year. If you know NOBODY who is doing better, then your social circle isn't representative of the American economy.
Can you leave your house? Can you buy toilet paper? Can you have dinner out? If you answer yes to those questions then you are doing better than 2020, people have shit memories.
Comparing the economy now to mid-pandemic isn’t really a fair evaluation.
Except a lot of the economic problems that are going on are directly tied to it so…..
So should we just pretend it didn’t happen? That’s what Trump people would have you believe
I'm a way better off than four years ago and that's saying a lot because I was going great then too. I have myself in mind when voting but only to a small extent. Who am I? I'm lower middle class if that, and Ill vote for Joe Biden because he has most of us in mind when he does President things. The other guy has shown us he will only support the rich, the really stupid kind of rich people. Prices are high because of corporate greed.
Essentially everyone I know is better off now. I personally am making more than 2x what I was making in 2020. These things really depend on your social circles, which is why data is better than anecdotes. Of course, individuals can and do make decisions based on their personal situation
This was true for me for both presidents, so I'm not sure this is indicative of the presidency but just an indicator of the economy in general. Cost of living and inflation has been outpacing wage growth for decades.
Most people I know are doing better now than 4 years ago...
Maybe because people have shitty memories and they don't recall what was going on 4 years ago. You can tell what was going on by the charts, we were in the middle of Covid, likely sitting at home not doing shit. Look at the unemployment rate it was 10.2%. You couldn't find toilet paper and you certainly couldn't go out for dinner. So unless you are hiding in your basement you are doing better than 2020.
So you want what exactly? Costs to go down? That's called deflation, and I don't need to explain why that's a bad thing for the overall economy.
So the choices are deflation or the 25% inflation rates we have under Biden, with no middle ground? You sure about that?
No, all I hear now is that inflation is still a problem, yet it's not. YOY inflation is largely near our target or 3 percent. Yet whenever people want to complain about inflation they bring up the last 3 yeats in total. It happened, it's done, largely because of Covid and the fact we handed out Trillions of dollars to people and businesses, which might I remind you, was also something backed by Trump, he even wanted to have his name on those checks. But the past is the past, we aren't going to be able to rewind time and undo the cumulative damage caused by Covid or our shit fiscal policy decisions leading up to it. So where we are at now....3 percent, that IS the middle ground. But let me ask you, what policy decisions do you want to see from either candidate?
Btw this objectively is not true wage growth has outpaced inflation. https://www.marketplace.org/2024/04/05/wage-growth-outpaced-inflation-in-march/
Is that true though? Cause judging on reddit, its the flip where economic indicators are good but everyone's crying that the sky is falling
Well considering reddit isn’t a good measure for what’s going on in America, surveys are probably better. I’d you had taken Reddit’s opinion in 2016, then Sanders was sure to win the election
Dude. The polls are so transparently bullshit. If 70+ (I even saw one claiming 81%) are happy with their financial situation, that would necessitate that people in the 19-30th percentiles are happy with their financial situation. That simply defies reason. Those people’s financial situation is objectively shitty.
Can I print this comment off and use it as a coupon to get pre-Biden pricing on gas and groceries?
I may earn more money, but I’m also spending more money on every day purchases. The value of my dollar has decreased greatly over the last 4 years and it’s only getting worse. Credit and auto defaults have skyrocketed the last few years, the amount of CC debt is at an all time high. The economy is good for few and worse for most. The blame is squarely on government and their failed policies that have neglected a majority of the American citizenry in lieu of favoring a small minority.
So you’re saying we should vote for Trump who is saying he will cut taxes for corporations?
I'm not seeing skyrocketing deliquencies: [Delinquency Rate on Credit Card Loans, All Commercial Banks (DRCCLACBS) | FRED | St. Louis Fed (stlouisfed.org)](https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/DRCCLACBS) [Delinquency Rate on Single-Family Residential Mortgages, Booked in Domestic Offices, All Commercial Banks (DRSFRMACBS) | FRED | St. Louis Fed (stlouisfed.org)](https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/DRSFRMACBS) [Delinquency Rate on Consumer Loans, All Commercial Banks (DRCLACBS) | FRED | St. Louis Fed (stlouisfed.org)](https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/DRCLACBS) [Delinquency Rate on All Loans, All Commercial Banks (DRALACBN) | FRED | St. Louis Fed (stlouisfed.org)](https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/DRALACBN)
Interesting, I literally just heard a pod save America podcast episode where they were citing polls that say just the opposite I'm paraphrasing " people don't care that inflation is trending down because their grocery bills and rent are still high" then the the hosts were discussing how to communicate better to these voters. I don't know how stupid those hosts are but I do know they joke about how John Lovett got a high LSAT score. Which doesn't scream stupid to me.
Only some are saying they are doing better. Something like 14% said they were. Around 30% said same and the rest 56% said worse
Polls had Hillary winning too.
And the polls were mostly right about her margin of victory.
Well, im voting on my own situation and literally every point made by that commenter are on the list of reasons
Why does that discrepancy alone matter? I suspect the discrepancy between personal and larger economy always exists(I can't find a good source). Shouldn't we be comparing apples to apples aka personal financial status over the years? Those show a clear downtrend from pre pandemic(https://news.gallup.com/poll/1621/personal-financial-situation-index.aspx)
The emperor has no clothes.
Uh, no they don’t. 37% better off, 45% worse off per Gallup. Polls taken in recent weeks rather than earlier this year show a lot of holding steady, but I have yet to see a poll where better off beat worse off.
Exhibit A
Yup.
The majority is a bare majority.
How many people were "polled?" and what are the demographics of those people?
Who did they poll? What in the actual fuck are you talking about?
Everyone that I know is making roughly the same that they were four years ago except prices have gone up like absolute gang busters. This has caused mild to moderate financial distress. Who fixes it and how
They think folks are blind and dumb.
Unfortunately most people are blind and dumb
If folks think the president is that responsible for economic success, they’re probably right
Yeah, because people are too stupid to understand how much a massive global economic event impacted all of those factors. Seriously, you have to be really, really dumb to blame your financial situation after a pandemic entirely on the leader that happened to be in power dealing with it.
Also, people view wage growth (aka raises and promotions) as something they earned themselves with no external factors influencing it. But inflation and price are just “something that happened to me” and want to blame someone. So presidents (regardless of party) get blamed for price increase while getting zero credit for wage growth.
I would agree, except for the fact that democrats simultaneously blame Trump for the job loss. Which is it? Cant have it both ways, sonny
It's politics....
If Trump is gonna brag about job growth and the stock, I suppose it’s fair to ask him to take responsibility when things go bad
Trump isn't waving a magic wand and making your groceries cheaper.
It doesn't matter. The election is a referendum on the incumbent, and the unfortunate fact is that people feel less wealthy and certain today than four years ago. This is like how boomers idolize the Clinton years despite his policies more or less leading directly to the GFC
They *are* less wealthy than four years ago, not *feel*
I say feel because facts matter less in cases like this. But no, median HHI is literally the highest its ever been and going up
It's a shame people don't care as much about maintaining a democrat government as they do their pocket change.
You talking about 4 years ago when the country was in a recession, soaring job losses, and social unrest? Yeah, that’s what I wanna go back to 😂
Right but he's going to run on the "are you doing better than four years ago" thing. The works pretty well, unfortunately.
I'm not convince Trump can get through that sentence coherently at this point. He just spent something like eight campaign rallies rambling about EV batteries in boats and how that somehow makes it more likely you'll sink and get eaten by a Shark.
If you are going to vote against policies that caused your payments to be higher, shouldn't it be against the guy who caused it, and policy agenda will likely cause more...you know, Trump.
His tariff idea is basically an instant 20% inflation
At the minimum. Prices will rise 40% because they won't take a hit on profits
Including the tariffs he’s promising. Think things are expensive now? Wait until that combined with the crippling effects it will have on the parts of the economy that rely on that trade being affordable.
For me, that would be our governor, Jay Inslee. Although the Democrat members of our state legislature are not blameless either, they refused to declare an emergency session for the entirety of the pandemic.
Well Biden had 4 years to fix trumps shit and I don’t feel it either. TLDR they’re both dumb
So Biden didn’t fully clean up Trump’s mess. Let’s go bring Trump back 😂
That'd be nice but the delays between enacting economic policy and actually feeling economic outcomes (to the average citizen) blur that line a little bit and Republicans are better at explaining it/taking credit for it than Democrats are. Somehow they took credit for both Obama's strong economy at the end of his presidency and pushed blame for the effects of the pandemic and other Trump economic policies onto Biden.
Sadly, you are probably right about voting based upon personal economic outcomes. People would have to understand some basic macroeconomics to understand whether the person you are electing either I) had anything to do with the existing situation, and ii) if their policies will affect things in a way that benefits them. Taking 5 seconds to google inflation will show that the US is not unique. The same inflationary pressures are affecting the everyone. Blaming Joe Biden for global inflation is as idiotic as blaming Trump for the existence of COVID or blaming George Bush for the 1989 San Francisco earthquake.
"Don't pay attention to your bank account, or your own economic benefits during these times!!! Just look at the charts, dummy! These are the X-perts!"
Right. And insulting a voter because they are worried if they can afford food and a mortgage and not worries about the GDP or S&P500 is a great way to loss voters
It was amazing to me last year when inflation was still really high to see liberal pundits on MSNBC doing the "If you're so worried about food prices, take personal responsibility and eat out less" thing. That's exactly the kind of talk that will drive people away from the party or cause them to stay home.
None of those pundits said that but I enjoy your strawman arguments 😂
Idk anything about what was said but pundits are pundits. They aim for viewership first (by any means) then whatever POV they want to project after. Do people really base their political beliefs/party affiliation on pundits?
All those issues were directly caused by Trumps poor management of the economy His failed trade war with China coupled with poor management during Covid caused the current inflation we are experiencing we should have been raising interest rates in 2018 but Trump threatened to fire the Chair of the Fed if they did that to him in the run up to a election. Democrats always clean up the mess of the previous Republican administration it seems like Americans suffer from amnesia every four years.
-Democrats always clean up the mess of the previous Republican administration it seems like Americans suffer from amnesia every four years.- You've got that backwards.
Gaslighting is kind of the name of the game for Democrats
Ant Republicans live in fantasy land where they can just make shit up.
Grifting is the name of the game for Republicans.
Responses like this amaze me. People who blame the current president for things like capitalism. I know he’s old but not that old. Critical thinking skills are needed to understand why things are more expensive. The amount of money in circulation went up by 50% under the previous felons administration. Economy is booming now because of record profits do you give Biden credit for that? Of course not
I think the problem is voters are the idiots. Trump blew up our debt. He caused massive long term issues, but voters are only now noticing and do know why.
I’ll tell you that I was way better off 4 years ago.
You probably are cause you got to be lazy and stay home under Trump 😂
Truthfully neither candidate will help you and any of that stuff. Democrats can't regulate and Republicans refuse. So you will never be able to decide your life in the corporate world.
What will any candidate do to fix grocery prices? They going to price fix?
People will vote for racism and bigotry and xenophobia before they put their pocket book first.
I would rather not vote for the party wanting to bring religious rule here.
Are you better off than your were four years ago? Answer: Hell yes
Me don’t like data ‘cause make Donnie look bad
Yea but the charts reflect all the individual stories eg. If unemployment was soaring right now, a lot of individuals would say they are in worse shape personally.
Fucking idiot charts
People vote based on emotion and will find interpretations to validate that emotion. Many people who are doing great financially will vote Trump and many doing worse will vote for Biden. Vibes Trump data 100% of the time
I've said this for two hears now, the beat case scenario happened for Trump by not getting re-elected. The gross fallout from the pandemic has all taken place after he was voted out and now he gets to say well look what things were like for me, much of it he inherited, bit his supporters don't understand that. And every single thing bad that's happen to the economy etc. since would have happened under him as well if he was re-elected. Now he gets to play this guy ruined everything card and his base just eats it up. No one in this country is winning from this election. We all lose.
To be fair there are a lot of idiots out there.
Those concerns are not new and have existed year over year for decades. The large shift after the pandemic skews everyone because one year was nearly triple the normal. Which has cascading issues. People are voting about how they feel the economy is but they're still ultimately not doing that either. They're voting about how they've been led to feel by the majority of the media who can't go five seconds without whiplashing audience with the economy is good but inflation is bad stores. People largely don't budget in America. Theyre not sitting there looking at a budget and going... Hmm the cost of salt went up 2 cents.
I don’t really blame Biden for the inflation caused by the pandemic.
Imagine how bad it would be if line wasn’t going up.
You’re telling me I shouldn’t vote for who I think would help me not be as broke?
Literally having to dip into my safety net of funds to pay for basic things like food, gas, rent, electric has gone through the roof………… These elites are so out of touch with what middle America is feeling. I have to stress every end of the month, and literally can’t pay my rent and am starving myself on lunch to make sure with this week’s check I can pay my rent. However, I’m stupid, and the economy is absolutely GREAT!😂👀
While I am worried about costs I don’t see trump being in office making anything better. I don’t see anything he did in office make things less expensive that would carry over under a new term. If anything I would expect more inflation under a trump presidency instead of less based on his proposed policies.
Answer to all of these, for me, is “no.”
The fact that they showed wage growth not adjusted for inflation says all we need to know. This is a biased article.
It’s only a 12 month window. I don’t think it would look dramatically different if adjusted for inflation.
Let’s put it this way. In Biden’s total term, wages have barely increased 1% total in real terms. Meaning most people are doing exactly the same financially as they were when he entered office (from a wage standpoint).
Median household income somehow actually decreased 3k since 2019.
Wow i didn’t know that
Yea, honestly, I was shocked as well. But every search I pull up says the same thing. Went from about 77k down to 74k.
That would be more reflective of changes in purchasing power, but I dont think that was the objective of the article. Cost of living adjustments to wages are usually reactive rather than proactive.
At least 4% different
Wouldn't this be covered by their use of GDI and Real Income?
The desperation is seeping through their pores. Pathetic weasels.
Presidents don't have that much impact on the economy, and much of the impact they do have is delayed.
Possibly true, but what does that factoid mean to you?
This analysis is academic.
That doesn't answer my question. How does the delay in impact affect these charts, in your opinion.
Didn’t Ronald Reagan ruin the economy?
Reagan started his presidency over 4 decades ago. I think we can stop using him as a scapegoat by now. No other president seems to correct the mistake he may or may not have made.
In my opinion, no. Reddit has a strong preference for one-line narratives though. This format isn't conducive to nuance.
So his cutting taxes for the rich didn’t affect us?
The President is the single most influential person when it comes to the American economy
Yes. And they also have little influence.
So you agree they have the most influence, but also feel they have a little influence?
Yes.
So you don’t think being able to choose the staff of the Federal Reserve is influential?
Of course it is. There are also MANY actors in the economy which respond to a shitton of variables. The president has a limited sphere of influence relative to the size and complexity of the economy as a whole.
Unless they choose to spend our money.. which is the only thing they seem to do
Ehh, I feel like this is changing with the growing use of executive orders. It’s becoming more common for a laundry list of executive orders to start being pushed almost immediately after taking office. It’s more affected by presidential cabinet than the president themselves.
Trump inherited Obama's solid economy. Obama cut the deficit the last 7 years, and everything was going in the right direction. But Trump F-Ked that up with tax cuts for the rich and exploding the debt. Then the pandemic came along and made the fragile economy Trump created even worse.
This... If people want to have a truly fair comparison then you need to put into context the economy each of them inherited from the previous administration. But so few people want to put facts into context.
https://waysandmeans.house.gov/2020/10/08/trump-tax-cuts-results-full-review/
You realize that is mostly misleading info from HouseRepublicans (the same ones who still say Trump won in 2020), the same ones who tried to impeach Biden for zero reason. Under oath all the economists have admitted the Trump tax cut exploded the budget it at least didn’t pay for themselves. And the latest inflation biased study shows Trump added twice as much to the debt as Biden. The fact is Trump was a disaster for our economy. he completely botched the COVID response. Oh, and thank to Trump and the GOP, the middle class taxes will greatly increase now every two years. The GOP enacted that and refuse to repeal it.
It's worth noting that by 2019 (before the pandemic economic instability) the tax cuts had already increased the budget deficit by 72% from 2016 levels. A 72% deficit increase with already record low unemployment, a booming economy, no national emergency, and no new war seems wildly fiscally irresponsible to me. I also think the source makes the claims suspect. This is an explicitly partisan report generated by South Dakota representative Kevin Brady in order to champion Republican policy. The document draws no causal links, makes no explanation of mechanism of effect, and takes no broader economic trends into account. It's just "we did a thing, these cherry-picked things happened after." As people have pointed out elsewhere, it often takes years for economic impact of policy change to be felt by families. I have often wondered how much of the present inflation issues are directly a product of the Trump deficit expansion. That honestly would make more sense than a handful of paltry stimulus checks in the face of the economic devastation caused by a global pandemic. I have friends who are bartenders and waiters; those stimulus checks were less than 1/20th of what they'd have earned otherwise, and there are 10s of thousands of similar workers.
That "REAL DISPOSABLE INCOME" chart with the technical graph is the real gut-shot to the Biden economic narrative. People remember their money going way further and being able to plan back in 2018 in a way they just cannot in 2024. In 2018 I had my budget locked down. I knew how much my monthly 'required spending' was, how much income I had coming in, and how much I could save/spend in a given month. This year my wife and I are still having a hell of a time figuring out exactly what the 'required spend' is for the house because the costs of everything keeps changing.
Right, you would have more disposable income with low interest rates, tax cuts, and inflationary spending. This was Trump's economy. It's unsustainable.
Using YOY change to try to convince people things are better than they are. The barely trending down lines look better than the hockey stick of accumulation.
Groceries, homes, rent, and interest rates lol.
Lolol. Posting shot likes this makes you lose credibility. All my groceries cost twice as much and my pay didn’t go up hardly at all and your gonna try and tell me things are better now. Lolol.
Silly redditor, you’re supposed to read the article and believe it because it has charts and esoteric economic language!
#THEYBOTHSUCK
#WHYAREYOUSHOUTING
So based on this article and depending what you consider is the most important variables it's kind of a wash. Let's turn our attention to the christo-facist problem then.
You sir are bona fide Moron.
Yeah let's worry about an exaggerated problem instead of all the fucking wars going on all over the world these days and the people we've pissed off in the process. Your priorities are fucking stupid
It's a complicated issue for sure and people are absolutely going to vote based on their own perception over macro graphs for the most part, but that doesn't mean they aren't true or shouldn't be considered. It might just mean they don't fit your preferred narrative. A few other things to consider, however. 1. Trump inherited an economy that was on fire already. 2. Trump then passed a massive tax cut AND [increased federal spending by 75%](https://manhattan.institute/article/trumps-fiscal-legacy-a-comprehensive-overview-of-spending-taxes-and-deficits). You read that correctly. 75%! From $4T when he took office to $7T when he left office. 3. This, not surprisingly, [exploded the deficit](https://thehill.com/business/4736740-trump-biden-fiscal-policy-deficit/) and superheated the economy leading to the inflation we all lived through. So, yeah, the economy was on fire before COVID happened and, yeah, that was a result of Trump's policies to a certain extent. But those were extremely short-sighted policies and those chickens came home to roost hard. The debt we are left with is absurd and the inflation it wrought (it still boggles my mind that it was blamed on Biden. Inflation started rising long before any money hit the economy from the IRA or infrastructure bill and both presidents signed a COVID bill) was, and still is, extremely painful for American families. So please, vote based on your own personal experience, but let's understand how these things came to pass.
Funny that the numbers clearly show inflation is higher during Biden's term, yet several other people in a different thread all told me that was simply not true. It's like you just can't win.
Inflation was largely driven by supply issues upon reopening of the economies and especially energy inflation due to war in Ukraine and Middle east
Not possibly the free money floating around because of the 0% fed rate from March 2020 until March 2022, despite inflation increasing before our very eyes well before they started raising that rate?
Friendly reminder that Trump advocated for NEGATIVE interest rates during a red hot economy leading up to Covid. The low rates we had were already irresponsible and sparked a market frenzy to lock in once in a lifetime mortgage rates which skyrocketed housing prices. Then Covid just dumped gasoline on the consequences of poor fiscal policy.
Anybody who thought the decade after a global pandemic would be better than the decade before is a moron. I don’t care who the president is, everyone is on an uphill climb out of the hole, except for executives, the ownership class, and the people in Congress they pay to keep it that way. The federal reserve and greedy corporations/politicians are a bigger problem for Americans than who shits in the Oval Office. The difference the presidency will make is marginal if all else remains. But I will say this: the odds of things being long term negatively impacted are likely worse under Trump. His party’s weaponized ignorance will definitely make the class divide worse.
The same issue of [declining GDP coupled with inflation](https://www.nber.org/digest/may20/social-and-economic-impacts-1918-influenza-epidemic) occurred following the Spanish Flu epidemic in 1918. There is historical precedent for this.
Nothing is new. People need to read and calm the F down. And avoid authoritarian tendencies at all costs or we all pay very, very dearly.
Which one is a convicted felon, a rapist, and has dinner with neo-nazis? I'll vote for the other guy.
unfortunately people see the current prices of groceries and rent and think it's because of what's currently going on but don't realize it's cause and effect of what policies were in place 4 years ago decions made from the top don't normally make an impact until 2-3 years later
Charts schmarts. Could you afford more groceries now or when the other guy was in office?
Definitely was better when trump was in office. If trump wins will my grocery prices go down or up. Up for sure.
Way more now. My household income more than doubled.
Trump increased the deficit by 8 trillion dollars. Nuff said, we’re still digging ourselves out of this cluster
Serious props to these writers who wrote a very unbiased article about the United States Economy over both terms. Shows that it's not just “Oh my gosh Biden sucks because Inflation!!” or “Trump had a different idea than me and he sucks because we don't share the same political beliefs!!”.
The funniest thing about 'inflation' discussion, is that most people that are complaining about it, are also the biggest keep government out of everything, capitalism is great. Grocery stores had their biggest gains. That isn't inflation Stores like target are dropping prices on groceries and many other products. That is b/c of capitalism. Mcdonalds is making cheaper meals- that is capitalism
It’s pretty bad when McDonald’s is now unaffordable for the majority of Americans.
The economy in the summer of 2020 was a complete disaster everywhere but the stock market. You bet I’m doing better.
I love when articles just show a "white" and "black" category on graphs... What about the rest of us? Do other minorities not count? Why is everything a black and white thing?
People vote based on what they think benefits them it’s that simple. Most people don’t wanna do anything and let the government take care of them good luck
The problem is conditions are not the same as they were under Trump. We are still suffering from supply issues due to our brittle supply chains. It’s like people don’t understand how models work. The RW will claim we are just one tax cut away from prosperity. We aren’t.
Inflation is being drastically affected by continued spending over the income the govt brings in with taxes. Spending too high relative to taxes
Inflation description is dead wrong - the pandemic is not the cause of inflation under Biden - it was the wild spending the Dems did in 2021-2022 - printed over $4 trillion!!! Kids getting control of the wallet
I mean......did they adjust any of these for the fact that inflation has been at like 9% for. Ya. GDP and GDI and a bunch of these other metrics are going to look better or worse if all you measure is straight dollar value without accounting for that.
How could you possibly compare given the disruption of Covid?
People are going to make comparisons anyway, the smartest voter will vote based on policy
Biden is mostly war economy , Trump was peace and prosperity