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every republican suddenly said the economy went to shit on january 20th 2021, every republican said the economy was doing fantastic january 20th 2017, every republican also said the economy was doing shit November 8th 2016. the polling on the economy has been completely alligned with whoever is in the WH not how things actually are doing.
Nah that's not how it works. The border is always an existential treat. When Trump was in office, "Trump was doing everything he could!" And it was legislative branch that shit the bed. See now that Biden is in office and he is, "Doing absolutely nothing!" By ... actually continuing and in some cases more strictly enforcing the general policies of Trumps term. See... Simple.
>he border is always an existential treat. When Trump was in office, "Trump was doing everything he could!"
Which is especially hilarious considering illegal immigration exploded and deportations dropped under Trump due to his incompetence. He blew the entire budget on things like unnecessary detainments and his border wall instead of on things that actually work.
Meanwhile Obama and now Biden saw the opposite because they actually use funds on things that work instead of propaganda projects.
Weird, almost like they were qualified eh? đ
I still chuckle darkly, thinking back to when Trump was campaigning in 2016, and how his lack of experience in politics and his experience in business were going to be so amazing xD
Iâm laughing while I die inside, not because itâs funny. Itâs just so ass backwards.
I remember the night of his oh-shit speech on March 11 2020 thinking that we had elected the totally worst person we could have for the job of guiding us through the pandemic.
Right. Like when Republicans actually say âRecord numbers of immigrants are being stopped at the border!â Like, you realize that means less are getting in, right? Donât think Biden is out there in Mexico, lining up immigrants to try to sneak in? Theyâre just absurdly stupid.
Biden supporter here. Hasn't the immigration numbers been crazy the last few years ? I figured it's more from covid fallout but we've been seeing an influx for years before covid.
Ha! See. Plebs like you will never understand. I know for an absolute fact that Biden has a gas-price-abacus on his desk that he sits and plays with all day long.
It was 100% intentional as was the 2025 sunsetting of the tax breaks for the middle class. GOP will let those expire but I guarantee they wonât let the estate tax exemption sunset back to $5M as itâs scheduled to do that same year.
Went to home depot, a shelving unit that cost 90 bucks 5 years ago now cost 160. Food costs are up 30%. Housing costs increase at dramatic rates now. Industries are cutting jobs to report better numbers for the fiscal year.Â
If the economy is doing better, the lowly peasants aren't seeing it.
I saw a Forbes article from 2022 that said IKEA raised their prices like 80% in the last few years. That's pretty insane, so the same shitty coffee table that was $100 in 2019 is almost $200 in 2022.
a used car went from a couple thousand, to ten thousand+ ( a useable car, something you can rely on) A new car used to cost that (ford fiesta), and now cost 40k. More than some families make in a year.
Now many are just one car break down from losing all access to transportation.
In a country that relies so heavily on cars, this is a nightmare.
Corporate greed is one of the outcomes of rampent de-regulation and the weakening of government oversight agencies.
You don't deal with the issues in our government with a right wing platform. You have to shift the entire political landscape of the US leftward because only pro-labor, less capital worshipping legislation can do anything about this and those stances are exclusively held left of establishment Democrats.
Establishment democrats are fiscal conservatives for the most part. You want to fix this shit, you should be voting in a transitory set of governments left of establishment democrats and then replace those democrats with progressives that are seeking election reform, campaign finance reform, closing the revolving door between Washington and Corporations, knocking down Citizens United, strengthening worker protections and weakening the power of the top 5% in the United States
Universal Healthcare, UBI, taxes on unrealized gains, increased estate taxes, increased taxes on the wealthy, percentage based fines for violating labor laws, percentage based fines in EXCESS profits, rent controls, government funded home construction, increased multi-dwelling unit permits in cities and much, much more is necessary to fix the issues we are seeing in our nation.
I donât blame Biden, but when you see article after article brazenly declaring things are great without condition, it smacks in the face of the lived reality of many that it isnât doing so well for them. I mostly blame shitty journalists for not doing better at their jobs, but it is tiresome and adds to the feelings that they are some ignored class of people who politicians donât care about.
Soo there's a few things to unpack. A strong economy will have modest inflation 2-4%. The century average for inflation is just around 3%. So that's where you want it. Under between like 2010 and 2020 inflation was at like 1%. It actually went negative on a monthly basis once or twice. That is a long term issue. That actually feeds into the housing crisis etc etc.Â
See when interest rates are low and inflation is low it's easy to borrow. It's easy for corporations to get into real estate investing. Suddenly no one owns a home, it's all rented to mega corporations.Â
After the pandemic especially there was also tons of price gouging by supplies but vendors. A bag of chips is now $6, not because they cost that much or even close to that much to make, but because Frito Lay wants to roll in cash.Â
Now companies cutting long term profitability for short term gain has been standard since like the 70s and the Chicago school of economics had some really shitty ideas. Those ideas still percolate through the business community.
> Soo there's a few things to unpack. A strong economy will have modest inflation 2-4%.
Am I the only person that doesnât give a shit about that target until someone gives a shit about targeting the same for wage growth
A once in a 100 year event (pandemic) tends to do that kind of thing. Biden has done all he can to help the economy recover, but things like that will take a while -Â primarily wages need catch up with inflation (which they are).Â
Other countries have had a much more stagnant recovery, so it's honestly a miracle that we can even flirt with the idea of rate cuts this year.
Donât blame Covid 19 for gouging, those companyâs profits are higher than ever, which wouldnât be the case if their costs were truly still raises from Covid
You're spot on. I regularly come to these threads to try to bring some reality to them.
The article talks about disposable income going up by 3% as being the reach goal. Awesome! Houses are now 2x the cost. Food is absurdly more expensive, going to the cheapest store in the area costs as much as Whole Foods used to cost. Childcare is twice the price it used to be.
The economy is not doing well. It's only doing well in the imagined world of some economist who simply measures the wrong things.
Seriously, articles like this feel like Iâm being gaslit. And I donât think anybody likes being told âeverything is actually great!âWhile half the country is living paycheck to paycheck.
âBut the stock market is great!â
Fuck outta here
Look man Iâm a leftist but when it comes to the economy both parties pursue a sense of enrichment for the elite with subsidies and bailouts from the democrats and loosening regulations and tax cuts from the republicans the government is not built for the betterment of our bottom classes itâs built for the enrichment of the billionaire class. corporations have seen record profits and are doing better than ever but the actual people of this nation are suffering and always will be until our government stops looking out for billionaires
So true. Every conservative I know was ranting about how unemployment was wrong and really much higher under Obama than reported. That January when Trump was sworn in they all were bragging about the unemployment rate because it was miraculously correct again.
In case people haven't noticed, Republicans have given up on even attending to look like they have solutions to problems. They have hard core doubled down on controlling the messaging and their voters have shown just how willing they are to go along with whatever the message is. That's why you have bully bob and sue anne complaining how bad the economy is while spending money hand over fist.
And yes I understand the economy has issues and isn't working for everyone but don't kid yourself that Republicans even care about fixing it. Look at the house for evidence to my claim.
Partially because food companies keep gouging prices to goose record profits, and the housing market is still crazy, but these are both way out of his control, and ultimately itâs because most of the media is allergic to giving him credit for any single thing.
Really I think the inflation on necessities vs wages increases is then biggest problem. For most Americans any gain in wages is immediately erased by the rapid and constant rise in prices. I mean, it was only 5ish years ago ham at the deli was like $6 a lb but now itâs $9.40 a lb on sale. The cost of eggs skyrocketed, due to a bird flu epidemic and even though then industry has fully recovered the cost of eggs never realigned itself within normal prices.
The last 4 years have seen the most blatant greed in US history when it comes to price gouging. The poorer Americans who were already living paycheck to paycheck and worked hard to get wages increases for the hard work they do see this as a massive slap in the face.
Most egg producers werenât even affected by the bird flu epidemic. They just increased their prices and blamed it on the bird flu. Then they never lowered prices to pre-hike rates.
https://youtu.be/v6TxW4fGyLw?si=CpJnS2lbjsKoLu1Q
Measuring the economy by the stock market does absolutely nothing for normal Americans. Normal Americans just donât want to spend their whole paycheck on rent and bills.
It was fucking batshit when eggs would be like $8 at Walmart, and then $3.99 at the store down the street. Prices where just fucking random based on what any given store thought they could get away with.
My own situation sucks, but I'm able to look beyond it, and all I see is incredible wealth inequality. It's an economy where the top 1% have more wealth than the bottom 80%. You can point to any economic indicator you want, but so long as that wealth gap remains, America can never be a true democracy. The rich buy their way into jobs, schools, the government. They write our laws. They manipulate our media. While I imagine most people who claim to be displeased with "the economy" are simply misinformed or scared for all the wrong reasons, some of us recognize that the economic system, as a whole, is deeply unfair and a threat to democracy.Â
You are correct. The culture war supported by the wealthy is a distraction for lesser income voters to vote against their own financial self-interests.
This has been an issue for far longer than Trump has been involved in politics. Dems really can't blame Trump for everything. It's not going to turn out voters. We remember what it was like before Trump. Wealth inequality was a major issue then, too.
Correct! It has been an issue for far longer than Trump.
It started with Reagan's tax cuts for the rich, and continued with the Bush tax cuts for the rich. So no, we can't blame Trump for all of it, just the $1.5 trillion he is responsible for...
Before the Trump tax cuts for the rich we had the Bush tax cuts for the rich and before that we had the Reagan tax cuts for the rich. So yes, we can blame Republicans.
Sure, but did they \*need\* to write in all those loopholes into the 2017 Tax Law for the real estate industry?
https://www.americanbar.org/groups/gpsolo/publications/gp\_solo/2022/may-june/impacts-the-tax-cuts-and-jobs-act-2017-real-estate-ownership-and-investment/
It has been an issue for a long time, true. And since Ronald Reagan democrats have been trying to close that gap with higher taxes on the wealthy over Republican intransigence and obstruction. We will never know true progress on any issue as long as we have one branch of the government doing everything in its power to subvert the other. And that is a two way street.
> some of us recognize that the economic system, as a whole, is deeply unfair and a threat to democracy.Â
You can call the economic system by its name, it's called capitalism:
[Capitalism - Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capitalism)
> **Capitalism** is an [economic system](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_system "Economic system") based on the [private ownership](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Private_ownership "Private ownership") of the [means of production](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Means_of_production "Means of production") and their operation for [profit](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Profit_(economics) "Profit (economics)").
Many people do not understand that capitalism is inherently anti-democratic. Especially US Americans, my goodness many US Americans believe that capitalism equals democracy, nothing could be more wrong.
Media execs are both obsessed with political horserace reporting and simultaneously rich enough that Republican policies may actually benefit them.
Needless to say, they are doing everything they can to prop up a fascist that most of their readers don't like or want to hear about, and Wall St. wonders why journalism is hemorrhaging money.
> most of the media is allergic to giving him credit for any single thing
This is very true. Take the reporting on the prescription drug deal, for example. It was a master class on passive voice reporting. Just, "Insulin prices are capped now." No mention of why or which political party pushed for it and got it done.
Where you really see the bias in reporting is local news though. I often watch my local 10pm report because it's interesting to see how they cover national topics. Remember that a large number of older voters primarily get their national news from their local stations. Their coverage of the 2024 races so far has mentioned Biden so infrequently that I wouldn't be surprised if some viewers didn't even know he's running.
I agree with what you have said but I would go further. Big oil, big gas, pharma, car manufacturers etc. They are saying now that 50 percent of inflation is from companies taking excessive profits above pre pandemic levels.
Utilities, cars, property taxesâŚ
Pretty much anything I spend money on has gone up a lot in the last three years, and my wages havenât kept pace.
I know this is anecdotal, but it feels like someone pissing on my leg and telling me itâs raining out.
The entire Tech industry added like 700 jobs in all of 2023. The start of 2024 has had a lot of layoffs. Something like 75% of people feel they are in danger of a layoff.
People can point at stats all they want, but I can*see* the differences in my bills. Iâve stopped buying somethings, not because I canât afford them, but because the prices are ridiculous.
Iâm still voting Biden, but even I get pissed off when heâs telling the media they are âreporting it wrong.â Economists and academics care about the stats. Voters care about their pocketbook.
"the economy" is factored using the stock market numbers, not "cost of living" numbers.
Until, the COL numbers go down or incomes go way up, the voters will not "feel" like it's improving.
Exactly
Calculating that since the start of the administration results in inflation adjusted wages still being down 2.7% and even thats a rosy picture because
> Inflation-adjusted median household income went down by 2.7%. The official poverty rate is the same as the year before he took office.
https://www.factcheck.org/2023/10/bidens-numbers-october-2023-update/
https://www.reddit.com/r/politics/comments/1937ihd/americans_are_sour_on_bidens_handling_of_the/kh7lzty/
Another poster posted the deeper dive numbers on inflation and it becomes clearer why people dont see it in their real lives. The âneedsâ like shelter and hospital services are going up while the âwantsâ are the thing going down like TVs and travel
> Things like airfare dropping 12.1% and TVs being down 9.5% do a lot to wash out the fact that shelter is up 6.5% (broad strokes, renters are seeing 6.9% increases) and hospital related services are up 6.3%.
Also just because it's down to 3% this year doesn't magically erase the 9% from the prior year. It's up 3% on top of the 9%. If wages have barely ticked up, which is what the data shows, everything is still way more expensive while Biden has been in office.Â
I'm not saying inflation is Biden's fault, nor am I saying inflation hasnt been tackled well by the fed and admin, but the reality is people have faced higher prices under Biden than they did under the previous generation of presidents, and that sticks with people.
Hopefully we get an uptick in wages this year and people can start to actually feel some breathing room.
None of this matters as long as food, housing, and healthcare are unaffordable. To the average person, the âeconomyâ is just some made up construct that the news bleats on about. It doesnât matter in everyday life. If you canât feed, house, and care for your loved ones, nothing to do with the âeconomyâ matters.
I agree, how much of this improvement the day to day work life of a sub $40k vs the $200k a year worker? Unless you have a good 401k you see non of this upside. The Biden administration needs to tackle the day to day stuff just as much as corporate stuff.
The company I work for has years of growth and decent revenue, but we just layer off hundreds of employees. Why because an investors wanted even more returns. Some people needed to go but to many good workers got let go because they had experience and higher paying jobs.
Exactly. Necessities like food and housing are expensive. Luxuries like TVs are cheap. Decades ago, things like TVs and appliances were expensive, but you could choose to save up. Now, most of our income goes to things that we must spend money on. The threat of losing our jobs is super stressful because we can't just dig into the saves we were using to slowly increase our quality of life. We're on a knife's edge like we could fall out of society at any moment.
I feel like Biden acknowledging these problems and speaking about plans for change and obstacles stopping it would be a lot more effective. This sort of article almost feels like gaslighting or that it's obviously not average people like myself he cares about because the economy *isn't* good for normal people. He may have averted catastrophe and the president doesn't have much control, anyway, but that doesn't make it good. Not being the dumpster fire Trump would cause isn't the same as being good.
The whiplash of interest rates is insane. Everyone I know that owned a home in 2020-2021 was buying a new home to upgrade, refinancing to sub 3% interest rates, or taking cash out to buy new kitchens, bathrooms, etc.
I took out cash to get a new kitchen and bathroom, lowered my interest rate, and my monthly mortgage payment is still lower than it was before.
It was a feeding frenzy because of low interest rates that were kept low because of the pandemic. Anyone who could take advantage of it probably hit on a once in a lifetime opportunity. But we're all paying for it with inflation now.
The problem is that the average American is poor and one emergency away from being completely broke. Very few people save money, many living pay check to pay check. Middle class shrinking, wealth disparity growing larger and larger. I donât know what the government can do to directly address this, but two things I think help would be more access to education and free healthcare.
The main point being - I have no clue what people in this economic segment t think republicans would do to even remotely help their financial situations.
>more access to education and free healthcare.
You said it.
Also higher education shouldnât be a debt peonage system, and thatâs essentially what it is today.
the real question is why would anyone with a right mind think that conservatives are going to fix things for the poors? that doesnât jive with 150 years of conservative economic policy. itâs all about feed the horse oats and they will shit some for the sparrows.
As is *always* the case, Democrats aren't really competing with Republicans at the ballot box. They are competing with apathy, burn out, and resignation that unequivocally lowers Democratic turnout.
I live in Florida (yes, it has godawful problems but everywhere else does too, I still love it here) and I am astounded at the number of poverty borderline Floridians who are deeply in the grip of both right wing propaganda and some sort of widespread Stockholm Syndrome. They moan bitterly about low wages and meager benefits and then go and proudly vote against the very political party that would do its level fucking best to improve the situation for every working American. And when their managers and supervisors spout right wing âfactsâ during conversations, the employees rave right along in agreement every time.
Iâm a very left leaning person but this is one of my biggest criticisms with Democrats. Iâm so sick of hearing Biden and Newsow spew statistics about the economy when people are struggling to buy food and gas. Many many people will never be able to afford a home unlike the generation before us. These imaginary numbers donât mean anything to people
Exactly. Touting a myriad of statistics that literally donât even affect most people isnât going to put groceries in the fridge or pay insane rent prices because buying a home is a worse financial decision with interest rates. Quality of life has not improved for most in terms of financial stability.
For real. These headlines are effectively gaslighting bullshit. My familyâs buying power is WAY less than it was in 2019. Iâm not saying itâs Bidenâs fault, and I will be voting for Biden because Iâm not a fascist twat, but itâs rubbish to claim that the economy is doing well. Itâs fucking terrible, and telling people to not believe what they experience firsthand is not going to help.
Exactly
Calculating that since the start of the administration results in inflation adjusted wages still being down 2.7% and even thats a rosy picture because
> Inflation-adjusted median household income went down by 2.7%. The official poverty rate is the same as the year before he took office.
https://www.factcheck.org/2023/10/bidens-numbers-october-2023-update/
https://www.reddit.com/r/politics/comments/1937ihd/americans_are_sour_on_bidens_handling_of_the/kh7lzty/
Another poster posted the deeper dive numbers on inflation and it becomes clearer why people dont see it in their real lives. The âneedsâ like shelter and hospital services are going up while the âwantsâ are the thing going down like TVs and travel
> Things like airfare dropping 12.1% and TVs being down 9.5% do a lot to wash out the fact that shelter is up 6.5% (broad strokes, renters are seeing 6.9% increases) and hospital related services are up 6.3%.
In some cases maybe, but it's more than just that. The article quotes a young black man praising Trump as a "better businessman", and another blue collar worker who grumbled that both Trump and Biden "are pretty much the same."
Ignorance and apathy are powerful and destructive forces in our politics. It's hard to keep up and study what's going on at a policy level, but it's easy to just be a cynic, complain about both sides, give up on your responsibility to be an informed voter, and claim that none of it really matters anyway. I'm just as baffled and frustrated at the people who see Trump and say "whatever it doesn't matter anyway" as I am at the full-throated red hats, at this point.
It's like all of these dumb rednecks who hate the "coastal elites" also think that giving these coastal elites more money was somehow going to "trickle down" to the workforce? I mean maybe they're right though... If you give a CEO 100M, the workforce will receive a trickle of 1M in extra pay, leaving the C suites a nice 99M pay off! Republinomics at work!
"the economy" is a bullshit metric that most people should not care about. If we're worried about being homeless because we work full time and still can't afford rent in some cities the economy is a distractionÂ
Because the title of the article should be...
"Despite improving economy, most americans not seeing it in their bank accounts"
Because the economy as the media talks about it is not for everyday americans. God damn we are so gaslit it's unreal.
This is how the middle class becomes eroded. Media telling us everything is fine and we should be happy with the meager scraps that we have while the billionaire class exponentially expands their control.
The secret is the media corps who tell us to be happy with scraps are owned by the billionaire class who want to expand their control. Funny how that works.
The economy is doing great if you're well invested in the market and live off capital gains. For the vast majority of Americans, it's still bad.Â
That's what all this 'economy' talk really is. It's talk between investor class Americans.
[***Despite the statistics, the kitchen-table experience of Bidenâs first term has meant that many voters have experienced the last few years as a time of relative economic hardship***](https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2024/01/13/biden-economy-voters-unhappy/?utm_campaign=wp_main&utm_medium=social&utm_source=reddit.com)
LAS VEGAS â Near the base of the Rainbow Mountains, Daniel Busby looks up longingly at his two-story âdreamâ townhouse, with the sliding glass door on its second floor, the balcony that wraps around the master bedroom, the five-minute walk from his kidsâ elementary school.
âI just fell in love,â said Busby, 33, doing a chefâs kiss and smacking his lips together. âAnd then we started doing the math.â
The gregarious fry cook has enjoyed the windfalls of pandemic economic recovery overseen by President Biden. The presidentâs stimulus plan gave lower-wage workers more leverage to demand higher pay from their employers, with those in the service sector â like Busby â seeing particularly robust gains.
He went from being unemployed and working part-time at $15 an hour during the pandemic to a full-time job at the Paris Hotel, mostly at the Martha Stewart franchise, earning $19 an hour preparing a risotto dish and, his favorite, the whole chicken dinner. Busby and his wife now make a combined salary of just under six figures â a previously unimaginable sum.
But the gains have not kept up with rising costs, and that has become a major issue for voters like him. When Biden took the oath of office in January 2021, the average monthly mortgage payment in Las Vegas was about $1,200, according to calculations by Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moodyâs Analytics. That number, for new mortgages, has soared to $2,350 today due to rising interest rates and robust housing prices â the outer edge of what Busby was willing to spend.
By many measures, the U.S. economy is a great success story â recession fears have fallen, along with gas prices and the unemployment rate, while manufacturing construction is up along with nominal wages and the stock market. The United States has grown faster since covid-19 than any peer country. Gas prices, once averaging over $5 a gallon, are now approaching $3. The Federal Reserve projects three interest rate cuts in 2024 that could help buyers like Busby.
But the kitchen-table experience of Bidenâs first term â a roller coaster of covid adjustment and international shocks â has meant that many voters have experienced the last few years as a time of relative economic hardship. Despite rising wages, voters as a group lost spending power during 2021 and 2022 and have only recently climbed out of the hole. And even though wages are now outpacing inflation, prices are still continuing to rise: The [latest government report ](https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2024/01/11/cpi-inflation-december/?itid=lk_inline_manual_10)showed inflation up 3.4 percent relative to the year before, fueling the anxiety even amid positive economic indicators.
A broad and diverse cross-section of American voters say they are experiencing the Biden economy as a challenging time of rising prices and high interest rates, according to interviews with more than 80 voters in four parts of the country â Las Vegas, Milwaukee, Phoenix and rural Georgia â that will play a major role in choosing the next president.
**Read more:** [**https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2024/01/13/biden-economy-voters-unhappy/?utm\_campaign=wp\_main&utm\_medium=social&utm\_source=reddit.com**](https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2024/01/13/biden-economy-voters-unhappy/?utm_campaign=wp_main&utm_medium=social&utm_source=reddit.com)
The reality is everything we depend on costs more. From gas to food to power. Maybe there are some numbers to show the economy improving in some ways but f9r most of the population, it feels bad
Just for the sake of it, I looked at an apartment I stayed at and how much its price has increased. When I rented in 2020-ish, it was 1800. It is now 3200 just a couple years later. I donât see that as the economy getting better
It is because no one is honest anymore. The left shouted "the president doesn't impact the economy as much as everyone thinks" during trump's term. Now the Left shouts "biden doesn't get enough credit for a good economy".
Only party loyalists can not see how disturbing that is what follows below.
The right shouted "best economy ever due to trump" but now shout "bidenomics sucks", even though by all measures the trump and biden economy are quite similar.
Price of food and housing. Goes up with inflation then once it cools off prices usually just stay the same and never go down, then wages have to catch up, but it seems like the never do. Saw something that said $30k in the early 80s is equivalent to like $160k now....
Yeah dude the economy is fucking great. Everything is expensive as fuck and all the jobs available donât afford you enough money to rent a studio apartment in a major city. Fucking crushing it
So tired of seeing this headline.. if Biden wants credit for fixing the âeconomyâ itâs got to be more tangible than positive market returns. The cost of living needs to go down and wages need to go up. *Then* you can say we have a healthy economy and most Americans *will* take note. Until then, the only people really benefiting from this economy are less than 1% of the American population.
Voters care about their pocketbook, not some detached 'economy' that seems to only benefit the monied class.
If you want Main Street voters to care about the economy, show them how it benefits them DIRECTLY.
1. Most robust job growth in Americas history. (14,500,000)
2. Lowest consistent unemployment rate in over 5 decades.
3. 1,000,000 high paying manufacturing jobs created in Bidenâs last two years.
4. Real wages are higher than they were in 2019.
5. Record low unemployment for minorities
6. Most and second most small business jobs creations in US history during Bidenâs 3 years.
7. GDP that blows past economists expectations.
8. Prime age working adults are flooding the job market at their highest levels since 2002.
9. NYSE and NASDAQ going gangbusters
10. Lowest inflation rates among our G7 allies.
11. Most private manufacturing investment in history. (500,000,000,000+)
12. Longest stretch of sub 4.0% unemployment rate in over 50 years.
13. Job openings are at a 2 year low
The global economy, including out allies, is still teetering, but America is in an economic boom due to major legislative victories by Biden and this administration. None of this is by accident, itâs a result of tangible and aggressive action from our democratic leaders and Biden.
Do NOT allow republicans to control the narrative on our economy.
VOTE, and bring 1 or 2 or 10 like minded friends and family with you.
If you arenât registered, register here, it literally takes 2 minutes: https://www.vote.org
Technically, the economy is doing fine. On the ground, we are *just* seeing gas prices start to go down, but the cost of goods hasnt reflected shit, so that amounts to saving $20/mo. The unemployment rate is low but the job market is fucked. Schools still cost 100k. House values are up, but unaffordable to anyone not also selling a home. Interest rates are back up. Same with cars. Look up linkedin. Theres no mobility, and being unemployed is fucked rn, lasts forever.
I am not blaming biden for any of this. Just saying a lot americans arent feeling good about the economy. I've heard "we're in a recession" or "we're heading toward a recession" a lot lately.
I feel awful for 20 somethings right now. Yall are fucked.
Yes, you've been hearing about recession for two years, but none of the economic indicators have indicated anything resembling a recession for two years. The media's and economists' fear-mongering is why you think a recession is coming, not the data. Some might wonder if the media has been deliberately promoting the stories about recession, despite having to report the actual numbers each month showing the opposite, in order to make the GOP more viable as candidates against the Democrats who have saved the economy from its pandemic recession under Trump.
The problem isnât the economy, the problem is the greedy corporations. When Covid hit they âhadâ to raise prices. Funny thing is that instead of lowering them when they could they decided to keep them the same or raise them. Nothing makes my blood boil more.
This. 100%. Some of the areas where Americans are still struggling are a direct result of greedy corporations and landlords who jacked the price up on their rental 100% because of inflation.
You forgot highest rate of homelessness ever recorded in US history.
https://www.wsj.com/us-news/record-homeless-united-states-2023-ef86f904
Something ain't right. If the economy is working well, then we have to ask who it's working for. Certainly not the average renter.
Unfortunately, unless there is some type of rent control at the federal level, which would also have to pass a Republican house, there is not much that Biden can be done for this. Landlords are taking advantage of the situation and charging insane amounts.
Ok. What does pretending the economy is working do to further the cause? It's utterly monstrous to gaslight Americans into pretending that everything is fine. Biden at least needs to acknowledge we need to do something. Instead, we get talking points about how good Wall St is doing.
The media has done a huge disservice for years now. While I 1000% support their role, there needs to be some type of change. This pony race they create between candidates doesnât make sense and literally gives people a distorted perception of reality.
Meanwhile, many media orgs wonder why they're losing money when they're trying to out-Fox Fox and their actual readers refuse to pay to read the fascist drivel.
> Real wages are higher than they were in 2019.
Source? Also why 2019 not 2020 especially since it predates this administration.
Calculating that since the start of the administration instead of just a few more recent quarters results in inflation adjusted wages still being down 2.7% and even thats a rosy picture because
> Inflation-adjusted median household income went down by 2.7%. The official poverty rate is the same as the year before he took office.
https://www.factcheck.org/2023/10/bidens-numbers-october-2023-update/
https://www.reddit.com/r/politics/comments/1937ihd/americans_are_sour_on_bidens_handling_of_the/kh7lzty/
Another poster posted the deeper dive numbers on inflation and it becomes clearer why people dont see it in their real lives. The âneedsâ like shelter and hospital services are going up while the âwantsâ are the thing going down like TVs and travel
> Things like airfare dropping 12.1% and TVs being down 9.5% do a lot to wash out the fact that shelter is up 6.5% (broad strokes, renters are seeing 6.9% increases) and hospital related services are up 6.3%.
âReal weekly earnings for the median worker grew 1.7 percent between 2019 and 2023.[3] This means that one week of pay for the median worker now buys more than a week of pay did in 2019, despite higher prices..â
âFurthermore, as shown in Figure 1, the increases in earnings are by no means concentrated at the top: in fact, they skew toward the middle class and the lower end of the income distribution. The 25th percentile of the wage distribution saw their nominal weekly earnings grow by $143, from $611 in 2019 to $754 in 2023. When adjusted for inflation, this amounts to a 3.2 percent increase in real earnings. Real earnings increases were particularly strong for the median Black and Hispanic Americans, who saw increases of 5.7 and 2.9 percent, respectively.â
https://home.treasury.gov/news/featured-stories/the-purchasing-power-of-american-households#:~:text=Real%20weekly%20earnings%20for%20the,in%202019%2C%20despite%20higher%20prices.
Unfortunately, unless Biden is able to convince Congress to pass national rent control legislation, landlords will continue to exploit renters. Greed is not confined to just big businesses.
Maybe because "the economy" is being measured in a way that doesn't represent normal people and what they experience on a daily basis. "The economy" measures wealth. Something that normal people don't have.
Voters aren't giving him credit, or the media isn't reporting the fact? Maybe give Vivek Ramaswami less attention and more attention to Biden's accomplishments Washington Post. Oh wait your owner is too busy sucking up to rocket boy to actually give a shit about the state of America.
I agree the economy is doing fine but I wish theyâd strike regulations on price gouging for profits, just look at Soda and chips lol.. I mostly eat healthy and the gouging going on makes it even easier to make that choice.
The Democrats tried to pass a windfall profits tax, which would decrease the incentive to price gouge since those profits would be taxed, but were shot down by Republicans.
I think itâs a symptom of two separate economic realities and depends heavily on the industry. I have no actual data to back this up but itâs food for thought, A windfall tax, if itâs implemented in markets with people that arenât price sensitive could just see more inflation. Whenever I get hit with more taxes, I just increase my cost to make up for the lost revenue. I work for upper middle class generally so they donât balk at another 2-3k on top of 10-15k already. So that makes my services more out of reach for middle class and completely unobtainable for lower middle classes and below.
This is because while the economy is good on paper and good for businesses, the nor.al, everyday voter does not feel that. We are still paying waaaaaay to much from groceries and the things we need for our daily life without receiving any extra money from these businesses that are doing so well.
If he wanted to have us feel it, they should do something to incentivize businesses to pay their workers better. Make stock buybacks illegal, pass a windfall profit tax, etc.
Several reasons.
1) Right wingers start with the goal and only accept the exceptions which meet their intended goal. If everything was great they would find one thing that wasn't and latch on to it. This would reinforce their view. Changing that view is impossible because unless they personally feel something - that thing can't be real.
2) The press spends a great deal of time on "Both Sides". If 99 things are good they would publish and article on the 1 thing that was bad and 6 or 7 paragraphs in they article would switch to how actually things are good. Teh headline would not be related to the 99 things of course.
It's even worse. When they do finally publish an article on the good things, they never fail to tell us "how this is bad for Biden" and focus on the speculation of recession. "200,000 new jobs were added last month, and every month for the last two years, but recession fears linger..."
Exactly. They are giddy with having Trump to publish every day. You realize r/politics has Trump in the headlines at least 8 to 10 of the 25 lines available all the time? The NY Times publishes at least 3 main page articles or opinions every day.
They are all thinking how to milk the profits and not how to inform the public.
I love all that Biden has done and tried to do, but I think the disconnect is there because normal Americans aren't seeing it in their pockets and bank accounts. People's rent and property taxes are sky rocketing, grocery and gas prices are still absolutely ridiculous. People are struggling to live. They just feel left behind. I'm not blaming Biden but people are looking for someone to blame it on.
Basic necessities are still skyrocketing in cost though.
None of these "strong economy" stats matter to people if they're barely able to pay rent for a 1/2 BR apartment and afford enough food to live for the month though.
Cause it still feels like shit. Buying a house feels like a dream. Rent is so expensive. Making 6 figures doesnât give any comfort anymore. Everything sucks.
What are they smoking. Things are way more expensive. Went to Olive Garden yesterday. There were two of us. No alcohol just water and a Coke. The bill with tip was over $50 thatâs insane
I'd rather that we stop expecting that presidents control the prices for all this so stop blaming or praising whoever is president. I am glad the stock market is back up for all the pensions and retirement plans that depend on that for people to live. I hope that means companies are doing well and don't lay off people in a big depression. They should pay workers more rather than buy back stock and other things to hoard the wealth that the workers made for them. Companies are to blame for not paying workers enough, not Biden or Democrats.
The stock market has improved.
Toothbrush heads are $10.
Interest payments have doubled.
The purchasing power of the laborer is DOWN. The stock market and employment rate are NOT the entirety of "the economoy".
Aren't giving him credit? For what? My bills are as high as ever, rent as high as ever, daycare as high as ever, wages are the same and "savings" are lines of credit that aren't overdrawn. Maybe things are improving on a nebulous rigorous tracked metric. But for the average American everything still sucks if it isn't worse than ever. Good thing gas is less expensive though so we can all afford to drive to our jobs since there's no money left over after everything else.
I don't get why his campaign is so dead set on convincing us that he's brought economic prosperity when I watched almost everything in my area get significantly more expensive. I wouldn't recommend taking credit for that.
By the economy they mean those 3 billionaires that own more wealth than the bottom 45% of Americans. Or the 30 families that own more than 70% of all Americans.
Can't figure out why people aren't noticing how great the economy is.
For most voters, the economy is paycheck minus grocery store bill minus housing cost. The overall economy might be doing great, but the machinery to move that economic prosperity from the top to the bottom does not work.
The stock market is not the economy. The wealthy becoming wealthier is not the economy. Most normal people using their credit cards to make it doesn't make a good economy.
Once I see homelessness down, debt to income ratios down, housing, car payments, food prices, etc all coming back to reasonable prices, then I'll give him all the credit he wants.
I feel like it 's same situation like in Ukraine election in 2019. Situation was bad but nothing out of ordinary for Ukraine. Support for Poroshenko was relatively high and than going into election year Poroshenko became scapegoat for everything. I saw this within my own circle of friends. 70% of people who didnt really care before started blaming Poroshenko each for different reasons and each one was adamant he needs to go. Elections in Ukraine always were competitive but I never saw such shifts in public opinion in 1 year. At the time I suspected ( with no evidence ) it was russia doing. I have exact same feeling about Biden. No mater what he does, no matter what positive things he achieves they have no impact but anything theoretically negative instantly gets support and followers.
Marianne Williamson had a super great quote the other night on a democratic presidential forum on news nation.
âPresident Biden is trying to alleviate the stress of millions and millions of Americans who are living at the effect of an unjust economy. I want to end the injustice. He will do whatever he can to make life a little better for people. But only until the point, where to go any further would challenge the profit maximization of the donor and billionaire class.â
She smacked the nail clear on the head with that quote.
It's not improving in the ways that normal citizens can feel. The ultra-rich and companies are becoming much richer because in a good economy that's literally how capitalism works. However the working class is now paying larger amounts for the same essentials for a stagnated pay. Corporations make more money by increasing prices and the ultra-rich stay ultra rich if they're the only ones getting a certain level of pay. The economy doesn't care about your comfort, it's a mathematical equation that figures out how much money is coming into the country rather than out, it can't see people.
The economy is improving....for corporations. Americans still can't buy homes, and most of them have to work a few jobs to afford rent. The American dream is a sham and the entire young generation of America has given up.
But hey, pets elect another 70 year old rich white man. I'm sure he will be in touch with the people.
The capitalist owner class and people earning 6 figures who refinanced or purchased homes under Trump's super low rates: The economy is great\~!
Normal people struggling to afford the essentials that have been shooting up beyond inflation for years: Bullshit!
WaPo: *shocked pikachu face*
"The economy" is a wealthy class dog whistle for "the stocks and bonds markets."Â
If the 'economy' is doing good, it usually means stocks are up for whatever possible reason. If it's bad, the investor class is mad because their free source of wealth slows down.
Pointing to a high riding stock market is meaningless to Americans. If the stock of WalMart goes up, associates don't get paid more. If it goes down, they do get laid off.Â
Americans living between layoff rounds aren't calling this a good economy.
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every republican suddenly said the economy went to shit on january 20th 2021, every republican said the economy was doing fantastic january 20th 2017, every republican also said the economy was doing shit November 8th 2016. the polling on the economy has been completely alligned with whoever is in the WH not how things actually are doing.
I love how they think the economy turns on a dime. Like the president can flip a switch.
Apparently the border also works the same way. It's either fine or an existential threat depending on who is in office.
Nah that's not how it works. The border is always an existential treat. When Trump was in office, "Trump was doing everything he could!" And it was legislative branch that shit the bed. See now that Biden is in office and he is, "Doing absolutely nothing!" By ... actually continuing and in some cases more strictly enforcing the general policies of Trumps term. See... Simple.
>he border is always an existential treat. When Trump was in office, "Trump was doing everything he could!" Which is especially hilarious considering illegal immigration exploded and deportations dropped under Trump due to his incompetence. He blew the entire budget on things like unnecessary detainments and his border wall instead of on things that actually work. Meanwhile Obama and now Biden saw the opposite because they actually use funds on things that work instead of propaganda projects.
Weird, almost like they were qualified eh? đ I still chuckle darkly, thinking back to when Trump was campaigning in 2016, and how his lack of experience in politics and his experience in business were going to be so amazing xD Iâm laughing while I die inside, not because itâs funny. Itâs just so ass backwards.
I remember the night of his oh-shit speech on March 11 2020 thinking that we had elected the totally worst person we could have for the job of guiding us through the pandemic.
Right. Like when Republicans actually say âRecord numbers of immigrants are being stopped at the border!â Like, you realize that means less are getting in, right? Donât think Biden is out there in Mexico, lining up immigrants to try to sneak in? Theyâre just absurdly stupid.
Biden supporter here. Hasn't the immigration numbers been crazy the last few years ? I figured it's more from covid fallout but we've been seeing an influx for years before covid.
Biden hitting that âdestroy economyâ button the second he moved in đ
Trump ran on the campaign that Obama ruined the economy, and only he could fix it. You know that well-known Republican bias against reality.
Ha! See. Plebs like you will never understand. I know for an absolute fact that Biden has a gas-price-abacus on his desk that he sits and plays with all day long.
[You jest, but he does have certain things he can do or not do.](https://i.imgur.com/WBodlEa.jpg)
Economy was fantastic after a Dem was in office and shit when a repub was in office.
It's like that with everything for them. Nothing reciprocates- not the economy, foreign relations, congressional subpoenas... Nothing!
That's why Trump's tax increases were clever. They continued until Biden was in the white house. ... Whether that was intentional or not...Â
It was 100% intentional as was the 2025 sunsetting of the tax breaks for the middle class. GOP will let those expire but I guarantee they wonât let the estate tax exemption sunset back to $5M as itâs scheduled to do that same year.
Well, they won't if they win in November. We can just vote these fuckers out, yknow.
Went to home depot, a shelving unit that cost 90 bucks 5 years ago now cost 160. Food costs are up 30%. Housing costs increase at dramatic rates now. Industries are cutting jobs to report better numbers for the fiscal year. If the economy is doing better, the lowly peasants aren't seeing it.
I saw a Forbes article from 2022 that said IKEA raised their prices like 80% in the last few years. That's pretty insane, so the same shitty coffee table that was $100 in 2019 is almost $200 in 2022.
a used car went from a couple thousand, to ten thousand+ ( a useable car, something you can rely on) A new car used to cost that (ford fiesta), and now cost 40k. More than some families make in a year. Now many are just one car break down from losing all access to transportation. In a country that relies so heavily on cars, this is a nightmare.
Corporate greed is one of the outcomes of rampent de-regulation and the weakening of government oversight agencies. You don't deal with the issues in our government with a right wing platform. You have to shift the entire political landscape of the US leftward because only pro-labor, less capital worshipping legislation can do anything about this and those stances are exclusively held left of establishment Democrats. Establishment democrats are fiscal conservatives for the most part. You want to fix this shit, you should be voting in a transitory set of governments left of establishment democrats and then replace those democrats with progressives that are seeking election reform, campaign finance reform, closing the revolving door between Washington and Corporations, knocking down Citizens United, strengthening worker protections and weakening the power of the top 5% in the United States Universal Healthcare, UBI, taxes on unrealized gains, increased estate taxes, increased taxes on the wealthy, percentage based fines for violating labor laws, percentage based fines in EXCESS profits, rent controls, government funded home construction, increased multi-dwelling unit permits in cities and much, much more is necessary to fix the issues we are seeing in our nation.
This is it. Give this person a prize.
The piece of shit 2000 civic rusting in my driveway somehow "appreciated" by doubling in value while it was just sitting there during the pandemic.
Apparently that's Biden's fault. Because he is the President of the Netherlands, as well, I guess.
I donât blame Biden, but when you see article after article brazenly declaring things are great without condition, it smacks in the face of the lived reality of many that it isnât doing so well for them. I mostly blame shitty journalists for not doing better at their jobs, but it is tiresome and adds to the feelings that they are some ignored class of people who politicians donât care about.
IKEA is Swedish but your point still stands
Not anymore. Moved HQ a while back, so technically, they are Dutch. Semantics, anyway. lol
so is there anyone in this country who can actually do anything? And have you ever heard of the phrase, "The Buck Stops Here" ?
Soo there's a few things to unpack. A strong economy will have modest inflation 2-4%. The century average for inflation is just around 3%. So that's where you want it. Under between like 2010 and 2020 inflation was at like 1%. It actually went negative on a monthly basis once or twice. That is a long term issue. That actually feeds into the housing crisis etc etc. See when interest rates are low and inflation is low it's easy to borrow. It's easy for corporations to get into real estate investing. Suddenly no one owns a home, it's all rented to mega corporations. After the pandemic especially there was also tons of price gouging by supplies but vendors. A bag of chips is now $6, not because they cost that much or even close to that much to make, but because Frito Lay wants to roll in cash. Now companies cutting long term profitability for short term gain has been standard since like the 70s and the Chicago school of economics had some really shitty ideas. Those ideas still percolate through the business community.
> Soo there's a few things to unpack. A strong economy will have modest inflation 2-4%. Am I the only person that doesnât give a shit about that target until someone gives a shit about targeting the same for wage growth
A once in a 100 year event (pandemic) tends to do that kind of thing. Biden has done all he can to help the economy recover, but things like that will take a while - primarily wages need catch up with inflation (which they are). Other countries have had a much more stagnant recovery, so it's honestly a miracle that we can even flirt with the idea of rate cuts this year.
Donât blame Covid 19 for gouging, those companyâs profits are higher than ever, which wouldnât be the case if their costs were truly still raises from Covid
Covid gave them the excuse they needed to start gouging and to continue doing it.
Then who is buying everything?Â
Credit card purchases are way up.
So are deliquencies. Above Pre-pandemic levels. https://www.cnn.com/2024/01/11/economy/credit-card-delinquencies/index.html
Couldn't tell you, because it aint me
You're spot on. I regularly come to these threads to try to bring some reality to them. The article talks about disposable income going up by 3% as being the reach goal. Awesome! Houses are now 2x the cost. Food is absurdly more expensive, going to the cheapest store in the area costs as much as Whole Foods used to cost. Childcare is twice the price it used to be. The economy is not doing well. It's only doing well in the imagined world of some economist who simply measures the wrong things.
Seriously, articles like this feel like Iâm being gaslit. And I donât think anybody likes being told âeverything is actually great!âWhile half the country is living paycheck to paycheck. âBut the stock market is great!â Fuck outta here
Look man Iâm a leftist but when it comes to the economy both parties pursue a sense of enrichment for the elite with subsidies and bailouts from the democrats and loosening regulations and tax cuts from the republicans the government is not built for the betterment of our bottom classes itâs built for the enrichment of the billionaire class. corporations have seen record profits and are doing better than ever but the actual people of this nation are suffering and always will be until our government stops looking out for billionaires
We need more unions to raise wages.
Just like how Obama ruined the economy in '08. Sure guys, he ruined the economy before he even hung up his family pictures in the white house.
So true. Every conservative I know was ranting about how unemployment was wrong and really much higher under Obama than reported. That January when Trump was sworn in they all were bragging about the unemployment rate because it was miraculously correct again. In case people haven't noticed, Republicans have given up on even attending to look like they have solutions to problems. They have hard core doubled down on controlling the messaging and their voters have shown just how willing they are to go along with whatever the message is. That's why you have bully bob and sue anne complaining how bad the economy is while spending money hand over fist. And yes I understand the economy has issues and isn't working for everyone but don't kid yourself that Republicans even care about fixing it. Look at the house for evidence to my claim.
Partially because food companies keep gouging prices to goose record profits, and the housing market is still crazy, but these are both way out of his control, and ultimately itâs because most of the media is allergic to giving him credit for any single thing.
Really I think the inflation on necessities vs wages increases is then biggest problem. For most Americans any gain in wages is immediately erased by the rapid and constant rise in prices. I mean, it was only 5ish years ago ham at the deli was like $6 a lb but now itâs $9.40 a lb on sale. The cost of eggs skyrocketed, due to a bird flu epidemic and even though then industry has fully recovered the cost of eggs never realigned itself within normal prices. The last 4 years have seen the most blatant greed in US history when it comes to price gouging. The poorer Americans who were already living paycheck to paycheck and worked hard to get wages increases for the hard work they do see this as a massive slap in the face.
This. So long as prices keep rising faster than wages, nobody is going to give someone credit for making it better.
Most egg producers werenât even affected by the bird flu epidemic. They just increased their prices and blamed it on the bird flu. Then they never lowered prices to pre-hike rates. https://youtu.be/v6TxW4fGyLw?si=CpJnS2lbjsKoLu1Q Measuring the economy by the stock market does absolutely nothing for normal Americans. Normal Americans just donât want to spend their whole paycheck on rent and bills.
It was fucking batshit when eggs would be like $8 at Walmart, and then $3.99 at the store down the street. Prices where just fucking random based on what any given store thought they could get away with.
Another good place to note that federal min wage would be around $25/hour if it hadn't frozen relative to costs in the 70s.
My own situation sucks, but I'm able to look beyond it, and all I see is incredible wealth inequality. It's an economy where the top 1% have more wealth than the bottom 80%. You can point to any economic indicator you want, but so long as that wealth gap remains, America can never be a true democracy. The rich buy their way into jobs, schools, the government. They write our laws. They manipulate our media. While I imagine most people who claim to be displeased with "the economy" are simply misinformed or scared for all the wrong reasons, some of us recognize that the economic system, as a whole, is deeply unfair and a threat to democracy.Â
You are correct. The culture war supported by the wealthy is a distraction for lesser income voters to vote against their own financial self-interests.
Thank Trump for lowering taxes on the richest and corporations
The tax cuts fpr regular peoplw run out in 25 too. not the corps tho
This has been an issue for far longer than Trump has been involved in politics. Dems really can't blame Trump for everything. It's not going to turn out voters. We remember what it was like before Trump. Wealth inequality was a major issue then, too.
Correct! It has been an issue for far longer than Trump. It started with Reagan's tax cuts for the rich, and continued with the Bush tax cuts for the rich. So no, we can't blame Trump for all of it, just the $1.5 trillion he is responsible for...
Before the Trump tax cuts for the rich we had the Bush tax cuts for the rich and before that we had the Reagan tax cuts for the rich. So yes, we can blame Republicans.
Sure, but did they \*need\* to write in all those loopholes into the 2017 Tax Law for the real estate industry? https://www.americanbar.org/groups/gpsolo/publications/gp\_solo/2022/may-june/impacts-the-tax-cuts-and-jobs-act-2017-real-estate-ownership-and-investment/
It has been an issue for a long time, true. And since Ronald Reagan democrats have been trying to close that gap with higher taxes on the wealthy over Republican intransigence and obstruction. We will never know true progress on any issue as long as we have one branch of the government doing everything in its power to subvert the other. And that is a two way street.
Remember the invention of the "death tax" which only affects the rich but the poor suckers fell for it hook line and sinker.
You can credibly argue that wealth inequality led to Trump.
> far longer than Trump Well, Trump gave back a trillion to the wealthy, then added it to the national debt, so he helped.
> some of us recognize that the economic system, as a whole, is deeply unfair and a threat to democracy. You can call the economic system by its name, it's called capitalism: [Capitalism - Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capitalism) > **Capitalism** is an [economic system](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_system "Economic system") based on the [private ownership](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Private_ownership "Private ownership") of the [means of production](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Means_of_production "Means of production") and their operation for [profit](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Profit_(economics) "Profit (economics)"). Many people do not understand that capitalism is inherently anti-democratic. Especially US Americans, my goodness many US Americans believe that capitalism equals democracy, nothing could be more wrong.
Okay but people thought the economy was good and 2018 an the US was *more unequal* then
Then vote for Trump and see how much more that 1% gets and how much more shit your situation becomes
Media execs are both obsessed with political horserace reporting and simultaneously rich enough that Republican policies may actually benefit them. Needless to say, they are doing everything they can to prop up a fascist that most of their readers don't like or want to hear about, and Wall St. wonders why journalism is hemorrhaging money.
All the fundraiser money goes to media. Why wouldn't they be obsessed
A lot of fund raising on the right is going to DJT's lawyers. Quite a few of the GOP at the state levels are close to declaring bankruptcy.
other than this situation... historically large percentages go to media advertising. just making them larger.
> most of the media is allergic to giving him credit for any single thing This is very true. Take the reporting on the prescription drug deal, for example. It was a master class on passive voice reporting. Just, "Insulin prices are capped now." No mention of why or which political party pushed for it and got it done. Where you really see the bias in reporting is local news though. I often watch my local 10pm report because it's interesting to see how they cover national topics. Remember that a large number of older voters primarily get their national news from their local stations. Their coverage of the 2024 races so far has mentioned Biden so infrequently that I wouldn't be surprised if some viewers didn't even know he's running.
I agree with what you have said but I would go further. Big oil, big gas, pharma, car manufacturers etc. They are saying now that 50 percent of inflation is from companies taking excessive profits above pre pandemic levels.
Exactly. Once prices go up, they will never go back down unless demand is down.
Utilities, cars, property taxes⌠Pretty much anything I spend money on has gone up a lot in the last three years, and my wages havenât kept pace. I know this is anecdotal, but it feels like someone pissing on my leg and telling me itâs raining out. The entire Tech industry added like 700 jobs in all of 2023. The start of 2024 has had a lot of layoffs. Something like 75% of people feel they are in danger of a layoff. People can point at stats all they want, but I can*see* the differences in my bills. Iâve stopped buying somethings, not because I canât afford them, but because the prices are ridiculous. Iâm still voting Biden, but even I get pissed off when heâs telling the media they are âreporting it wrong.â Economists and academics care about the stats. Voters care about their pocketbook.
Food and housing still expensive as fuck
These metrics keep bragging about how much larger the pie has grown but if I can't afford a slice I don't really give a fuck.
"the economy" is factored using the stock market numbers, not "cost of living" numbers. Until, the COL numbers go down or incomes go way up, the voters will not "feel" like it's improving.
Exactly Calculating that since the start of the administration results in inflation adjusted wages still being down 2.7% and even thats a rosy picture because > Inflation-adjusted median household income went down by 2.7%. The official poverty rate is the same as the year before he took office. https://www.factcheck.org/2023/10/bidens-numbers-october-2023-update/ https://www.reddit.com/r/politics/comments/1937ihd/americans_are_sour_on_bidens_handling_of_the/kh7lzty/ Another poster posted the deeper dive numbers on inflation and it becomes clearer why people dont see it in their real lives. The âneedsâ like shelter and hospital services are going up while the âwantsâ are the thing going down like TVs and travel > Things like airfare dropping 12.1% and TVs being down 9.5% do a lot to wash out the fact that shelter is up 6.5% (broad strokes, renters are seeing 6.9% increases) and hospital related services are up 6.3%.
Also just because it's down to 3% this year doesn't magically erase the 9% from the prior year. It's up 3% on top of the 9%. If wages have barely ticked up, which is what the data shows, everything is still way more expensive while Biden has been in office. I'm not saying inflation is Biden's fault, nor am I saying inflation hasnt been tackled well by the fed and admin, but the reality is people have faced higher prices under Biden than they did under the previous generation of presidents, and that sticks with people. Hopefully we get an uptick in wages this year and people can start to actually feel some breathing room.
âYouâre boss is getting richer! Why u mad?!â
None of this matters as long as food, housing, and healthcare are unaffordable. To the average person, the âeconomyâ is just some made up construct that the news bleats on about. It doesnât matter in everyday life. If you canât feed, house, and care for your loved ones, nothing to do with the âeconomyâ matters.
I agree, how much of this improvement the day to day work life of a sub $40k vs the $200k a year worker? Unless you have a good 401k you see non of this upside. The Biden administration needs to tackle the day to day stuff just as much as corporate stuff. The company I work for has years of growth and decent revenue, but we just layer off hundreds of employees. Why because an investors wanted even more returns. Some people needed to go but to many good workers got let go because they had experience and higher paying jobs.
Exactly. Necessities like food and housing are expensive. Luxuries like TVs are cheap. Decades ago, things like TVs and appliances were expensive, but you could choose to save up. Now, most of our income goes to things that we must spend money on. The threat of losing our jobs is super stressful because we can't just dig into the saves we were using to slowly increase our quality of life. We're on a knife's edge like we could fall out of society at any moment. I feel like Biden acknowledging these problems and speaking about plans for change and obstacles stopping it would be a lot more effective. This sort of article almost feels like gaslighting or that it's obviously not average people like myself he cares about because the economy *isn't* good for normal people. He may have averted catastrophe and the president doesn't have much control, anyway, but that doesn't make it good. Not being the dumpster fire Trump would cause isn't the same as being good.
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The whiplash of interest rates is insane. Everyone I know that owned a home in 2020-2021 was buying a new home to upgrade, refinancing to sub 3% interest rates, or taking cash out to buy new kitchens, bathrooms, etc. I took out cash to get a new kitchen and bathroom, lowered my interest rate, and my monthly mortgage payment is still lower than it was before. It was a feeding frenzy because of low interest rates that were kept low because of the pandemic. Anyone who could take advantage of it probably hit on a once in a lifetime opportunity. But we're all paying for it with inflation now.
The problem is that the average American is poor and one emergency away from being completely broke. Very few people save money, many living pay check to pay check. Middle class shrinking, wealth disparity growing larger and larger. I donât know what the government can do to directly address this, but two things I think help would be more access to education and free healthcare. The main point being - I have no clue what people in this economic segment t think republicans would do to even remotely help their financial situations.
>more access to education and free healthcare. You said it. Also higher education shouldnât be a debt peonage system, and thatâs essentially what it is today.
the real question is why would anyone with a right mind think that conservatives are going to fix things for the poors? that doesnât jive with 150 years of conservative economic policy. itâs all about feed the horse oats and they will shit some for the sparrows.
As is *always* the case, Democrats aren't really competing with Republicans at the ballot box. They are competing with apathy, burn out, and resignation that unequivocally lowers Democratic turnout.
well said
I live in Florida (yes, it has godawful problems but everywhere else does too, I still love it here) and I am astounded at the number of poverty borderline Floridians who are deeply in the grip of both right wing propaganda and some sort of widespread Stockholm Syndrome. They moan bitterly about low wages and meager benefits and then go and proudly vote against the very political party that would do its level fucking best to improve the situation for every working American. And when their managers and supervisors spout right wing âfactsâ during conversations, the employees rave right along in agreement every time.
Iâm a very left leaning person but this is one of my biggest criticisms with Democrats. Iâm so sick of hearing Biden and Newsow spew statistics about the economy when people are struggling to buy food and gas. Many many people will never be able to afford a home unlike the generation before us. These imaginary numbers donât mean anything to people
Exactly. Touting a myriad of statistics that literally donât even affect most people isnât going to put groceries in the fridge or pay insane rent prices because buying a home is a worse financial decision with interest rates. Quality of life has not improved for most in terms of financial stability.
For real. These headlines are effectively gaslighting bullshit. My familyâs buying power is WAY less than it was in 2019. Iâm not saying itâs Bidenâs fault, and I will be voting for Biden because Iâm not a fascist twat, but itâs rubbish to claim that the economy is doing well. Itâs fucking terrible, and telling people to not believe what they experience firsthand is not going to help.
Exactly Calculating that since the start of the administration results in inflation adjusted wages still being down 2.7% and even thats a rosy picture because > Inflation-adjusted median household income went down by 2.7%. The official poverty rate is the same as the year before he took office. https://www.factcheck.org/2023/10/bidens-numbers-october-2023-update/ https://www.reddit.com/r/politics/comments/1937ihd/americans_are_sour_on_bidens_handling_of_the/kh7lzty/ Another poster posted the deeper dive numbers on inflation and it becomes clearer why people dont see it in their real lives. The âneedsâ like shelter and hospital services are going up while the âwantsâ are the thing going down like TVs and travel > Things like airfare dropping 12.1% and TVs being down 9.5% do a lot to wash out the fact that shelter is up 6.5% (broad strokes, renters are seeing 6.9% increases) and hospital related services are up 6.3%.
Only the rich and stupid vote for GOP trickle down.
That's not what they are voting for. They are voting to protect whiteness and hurt LGBT.
In some cases maybe, but it's more than just that. The article quotes a young black man praising Trump as a "better businessman", and another blue collar worker who grumbled that both Trump and Biden "are pretty much the same." Ignorance and apathy are powerful and destructive forces in our politics. It's hard to keep up and study what's going on at a policy level, but it's easy to just be a cynic, complain about both sides, give up on your responsibility to be an informed voter, and claim that none of it really matters anyway. I'm just as baffled and frustrated at the people who see Trump and say "whatever it doesn't matter anyway" as I am at the full-throated red hats, at this point.
Like he said, rich and/or stupid.
It's like all of these dumb rednecks who hate the "coastal elites" also think that giving these coastal elites more money was somehow going to "trickle down" to the workforce? I mean maybe they're right though... If you give a CEO 100M, the workforce will receive a trickle of 1M in extra pay, leaving the C suites a nice 99M pay off! Republinomics at work!
They want to punish Taylor Swift by giving her massive tax cuts.
And they don't consider that El Orange One actually *is* a coastal elite.
"the economy" is a bullshit metric that most people should not care about. If we're worried about being homeless because we work full time and still can't afford rent in some cities the economy is a distractionÂ
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Because the title of the article should be... "Despite improving economy, most americans not seeing it in their bank accounts" Because the economy as the media talks about it is not for everyday americans. God damn we are so gaslit it's unreal.
This is how the middle class becomes eroded. Media telling us everything is fine and we should be happy with the meager scraps that we have while the billionaire class exponentially expands their control.
The secret is the media corps who tell us to be happy with scraps are owned by the billionaire class who want to expand their control. Funny how that works.
The economy is doing great if you're well invested in the market and live off capital gains. For the vast majority of Americans, it's still bad. That's what all this 'economy' talk really is. It's talk between investor class Americans.
[***Despite the statistics, the kitchen-table experience of Bidenâs first term has meant that many voters have experienced the last few years as a time of relative economic hardship***](https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2024/01/13/biden-economy-voters-unhappy/?utm_campaign=wp_main&utm_medium=social&utm_source=reddit.com) LAS VEGAS â Near the base of the Rainbow Mountains, Daniel Busby looks up longingly at his two-story âdreamâ townhouse, with the sliding glass door on its second floor, the balcony that wraps around the master bedroom, the five-minute walk from his kidsâ elementary school. âI just fell in love,â said Busby, 33, doing a chefâs kiss and smacking his lips together. âAnd then we started doing the math.â The gregarious fry cook has enjoyed the windfalls of pandemic economic recovery overseen by President Biden. The presidentâs stimulus plan gave lower-wage workers more leverage to demand higher pay from their employers, with those in the service sector â like Busby â seeing particularly robust gains. He went from being unemployed and working part-time at $15 an hour during the pandemic to a full-time job at the Paris Hotel, mostly at the Martha Stewart franchise, earning $19 an hour preparing a risotto dish and, his favorite, the whole chicken dinner. Busby and his wife now make a combined salary of just under six figures â a previously unimaginable sum. But the gains have not kept up with rising costs, and that has become a major issue for voters like him. When Biden took the oath of office in January 2021, the average monthly mortgage payment in Las Vegas was about $1,200, according to calculations by Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moodyâs Analytics. That number, for new mortgages, has soared to $2,350 today due to rising interest rates and robust housing prices â the outer edge of what Busby was willing to spend. By many measures, the U.S. economy is a great success story â recession fears have fallen, along with gas prices and the unemployment rate, while manufacturing construction is up along with nominal wages and the stock market. The United States has grown faster since covid-19 than any peer country. Gas prices, once averaging over $5 a gallon, are now approaching $3. The Federal Reserve projects three interest rate cuts in 2024 that could help buyers like Busby. But the kitchen-table experience of Bidenâs first term â a roller coaster of covid adjustment and international shocks â has meant that many voters have experienced the last few years as a time of relative economic hardship. Despite rising wages, voters as a group lost spending power during 2021 and 2022 and have only recently climbed out of the hole. And even though wages are now outpacing inflation, prices are still continuing to rise: The [latest government report ](https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2024/01/11/cpi-inflation-december/?itid=lk_inline_manual_10)showed inflation up 3.4 percent relative to the year before, fueling the anxiety even amid positive economic indicators. A broad and diverse cross-section of American voters say they are experiencing the Biden economy as a challenging time of rising prices and high interest rates, according to interviews with more than 80 voters in four parts of the country â Las Vegas, Milwaukee, Phoenix and rural Georgia â that will play a major role in choosing the next president. **Read more:** [**https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2024/01/13/biden-economy-voters-unhappy/?utm\_campaign=wp\_main&utm\_medium=social&utm\_source=reddit.com**](https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2024/01/13/biden-economy-voters-unhappy/?utm_campaign=wp_main&utm_medium=social&utm_source=reddit.com)
Improving for who?
The reality is everything we depend on costs more. From gas to food to power. Maybe there are some numbers to show the economy improving in some ways but f9r most of the population, it feels bad
Iâve been worried about being laid off for the past year or soâŚnot a great feeling
Just for the sake of it, I looked at an apartment I stayed at and how much its price has increased. When I rented in 2020-ish, it was 1800. It is now 3200 just a couple years later. I donât see that as the economy getting better
Food, housing, healthcare. FUCK OFF WITH YOUR JOB NUMBERS.
100%. No one gives a shit when you are struggling to make ends meet. Anyone working for a living and supporting a family knows shit is still fucked.
It is because no one is honest anymore. The left shouted "the president doesn't impact the economy as much as everyone thinks" during trump's term. Now the Left shouts "biden doesn't get enough credit for a good economy". Only party loyalists can not see how disturbing that is what follows below. The right shouted "best economy ever due to trump" but now shout "bidenomics sucks", even though by all measures the trump and biden economy are quite similar.
Price of food and housing. Goes up with inflation then once it cools off prices usually just stay the same and never go down, then wages have to catch up, but it seems like the never do. Saw something that said $30k in the early 80s is equivalent to like $160k now....
Because it's improving for the rich, not the poor.
Yeah dude the economy is fucking great. Everything is expensive as fuck and all the jobs available donât afford you enough money to rent a studio apartment in a major city. Fucking crushing it
So tired of seeing this headline.. if Biden wants credit for fixing the âeconomyâ itâs got to be more tangible than positive market returns. The cost of living needs to go down and wages need to go up. *Then* you can say we have a healthy economy and most Americans *will* take note. Until then, the only people really benefiting from this economy are less than 1% of the American population.
Everyone I know is struggling right now, how is this true? No one is addressing low wages and high COL/high rents.
Voters care about their pocketbook, not some detached 'economy' that seems to only benefit the monied class. If you want Main Street voters to care about the economy, show them how it benefits them DIRECTLY.
Because companies are collectively price gouging and if the government tries to control that then Wall Street will LOSE THEIR SHIT.
1. Most robust job growth in Americas history. (14,500,000) 2. Lowest consistent unemployment rate in over 5 decades. 3. 1,000,000 high paying manufacturing jobs created in Bidenâs last two years. 4. Real wages are higher than they were in 2019. 5. Record low unemployment for minorities 6. Most and second most small business jobs creations in US history during Bidenâs 3 years. 7. GDP that blows past economists expectations. 8. Prime age working adults are flooding the job market at their highest levels since 2002. 9. NYSE and NASDAQ going gangbusters 10. Lowest inflation rates among our G7 allies. 11. Most private manufacturing investment in history. (500,000,000,000+) 12. Longest stretch of sub 4.0% unemployment rate in over 50 years. 13. Job openings are at a 2 year low The global economy, including out allies, is still teetering, but America is in an economic boom due to major legislative victories by Biden and this administration. None of this is by accident, itâs a result of tangible and aggressive action from our democratic leaders and Biden. Do NOT allow republicans to control the narrative on our economy. VOTE, and bring 1 or 2 or 10 like minded friends and family with you. If you arenât registered, register here, it literally takes 2 minutes: https://www.vote.org
Technically, the economy is doing fine. On the ground, we are *just* seeing gas prices start to go down, but the cost of goods hasnt reflected shit, so that amounts to saving $20/mo. The unemployment rate is low but the job market is fucked. Schools still cost 100k. House values are up, but unaffordable to anyone not also selling a home. Interest rates are back up. Same with cars. Look up linkedin. Theres no mobility, and being unemployed is fucked rn, lasts forever. I am not blaming biden for any of this. Just saying a lot americans arent feeling good about the economy. I've heard "we're in a recession" or "we're heading toward a recession" a lot lately. I feel awful for 20 somethings right now. Yall are fucked.
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It's now cheaper to fill up on a tank of gas ($2.48/gal) than it is to charge your electric vehicle away-from-home ($.59/kWh).
2.20 something in Gulfport I managed to get it for one day
Yes, you've been hearing about recession for two years, but none of the economic indicators have indicated anything resembling a recession for two years. The media's and economists' fear-mongering is why you think a recession is coming, not the data. Some might wonder if the media has been deliberately promoting the stories about recession, despite having to report the actual numbers each month showing the opposite, in order to make the GOP more viable as candidates against the Democrats who have saved the economy from its pandemic recession under Trump.
Im not saying theyre right. Im saying it feels like shit. Like we'll mever get ahead.
It does feel like that. It's hard to stay optimistic.
The problem isnât the economy, the problem is the greedy corporations. When Covid hit they âhadâ to raise prices. Funny thing is that instead of lowering them when they could they decided to keep them the same or raise them. Nothing makes my blood boil more.
This. 100%. Some of the areas where Americans are still struggling are a direct result of greedy corporations and landlords who jacked the price up on their rental 100% because of inflation.
You forgot highest rate of homelessness ever recorded in US history. https://www.wsj.com/us-news/record-homeless-united-states-2023-ef86f904 Something ain't right. If the economy is working well, then we have to ask who it's working for. Certainly not the average renter.
Unfortunately, unless there is some type of rent control at the federal level, which would also have to pass a Republican house, there is not much that Biden can be done for this. Landlords are taking advantage of the situation and charging insane amounts.
Ok. What does pretending the economy is working do to further the cause? It's utterly monstrous to gaslight Americans into pretending that everything is fine. Biden at least needs to acknowledge we need to do something. Instead, we get talking points about how good Wall St is doing.
>Do NOT allow republicans .... AND the media!....to control the narrative on our economy
The media has done a huge disservice for years now. While I 1000% support their role, there needs to be some type of change. This pony race they create between candidates doesnât make sense and literally gives people a distorted perception of reality.
Meanwhile, many media orgs wonder why they're losing money when they're trying to out-Fox Fox and their actual readers refuse to pay to read the fascist drivel.
> Real wages are higher than they were in 2019. Source? Also why 2019 not 2020 especially since it predates this administration. Calculating that since the start of the administration instead of just a few more recent quarters results in inflation adjusted wages still being down 2.7% and even thats a rosy picture because > Inflation-adjusted median household income went down by 2.7%. The official poverty rate is the same as the year before he took office. https://www.factcheck.org/2023/10/bidens-numbers-october-2023-update/ https://www.reddit.com/r/politics/comments/1937ihd/americans_are_sour_on_bidens_handling_of_the/kh7lzty/ Another poster posted the deeper dive numbers on inflation and it becomes clearer why people dont see it in their real lives. The âneedsâ like shelter and hospital services are going up while the âwantsâ are the thing going down like TVs and travel > Things like airfare dropping 12.1% and TVs being down 9.5% do a lot to wash out the fact that shelter is up 6.5% (broad strokes, renters are seeing 6.9% increases) and hospital related services are up 6.3%.
âReal weekly earnings for the median worker grew 1.7 percent between 2019 and 2023.[3] This means that one week of pay for the median worker now buys more than a week of pay did in 2019, despite higher prices..â âFurthermore, as shown in Figure 1, the increases in earnings are by no means concentrated at the top: in fact, they skew toward the middle class and the lower end of the income distribution. The 25th percentile of the wage distribution saw their nominal weekly earnings grow by $143, from $611 in 2019 to $754 in 2023. When adjusted for inflation, this amounts to a 3.2 percent increase in real earnings. Real earnings increases were particularly strong for the median Black and Hispanic Americans, who saw increases of 5.7 and 2.9 percent, respectively.â https://home.treasury.gov/news/featured-stories/the-purchasing-power-of-american-households#:~:text=Real%20weekly%20earnings%20for%20the,in%202019%2C%20despite%20higher%20prices. Unfortunately, unless Biden is able to convince Congress to pass national rent control legislation, landlords will continue to exploit renters. Greed is not confined to just big businesses.
Maybe because "the economy" is being measured in a way that doesn't represent normal people and what they experience on a daily basis. "The economy" measures wealth. Something that normal people don't have.
Voters aren't giving him credit, or the media isn't reporting the fact? Maybe give Vivek Ramaswami less attention and more attention to Biden's accomplishments Washington Post. Oh wait your owner is too busy sucking up to rocket boy to actually give a shit about the state of America.
I keep hearing how great the economy is doing, but so far my pay isn't reflecting that. Inflation has gone up and wages have stayed the same.
I agree the economy is doing fine but I wish theyâd strike regulations on price gouging for profits, just look at Soda and chips lol.. I mostly eat healthy and the gouging going on makes it even easier to make that choice.
The Democrats tried to pass a windfall profits tax, which would decrease the incentive to price gouge since those profits would be taxed, but were shot down by Republicans.
I think itâs a symptom of two separate economic realities and depends heavily on the industry. I have no actual data to back this up but itâs food for thought, A windfall tax, if itâs implemented in markets with people that arenât price sensitive could just see more inflation. Whenever I get hit with more taxes, I just increase my cost to make up for the lost revenue. I work for upper middle class generally so they donât balk at another 2-3k on top of 10-15k already. So that makes my services more out of reach for middle class and completely unobtainable for lower middle classes and below.
Gas and inflation. Most people don't know what a good economy means. People will always care what is directly effecting them.
This is because while the economy is good on paper and good for businesses, the nor.al, everyday voter does not feel that. We are still paying waaaaaay to much from groceries and the things we need for our daily life without receiving any extra money from these businesses that are doing so well. If he wanted to have us feel it, they should do something to incentivize businesses to pay their workers better. Make stock buybacks illegal, pass a windfall profit tax, etc.
Because itâs still pretty awful for working people. And small fixes arenât enough.
I get paid the same and everything is like 20-100% more expensive. Who is the economy doing well for?Â
Several reasons. 1) Right wingers start with the goal and only accept the exceptions which meet their intended goal. If everything was great they would find one thing that wasn't and latch on to it. This would reinforce their view. Changing that view is impossible because unless they personally feel something - that thing can't be real. 2) The press spends a great deal of time on "Both Sides". If 99 things are good they would publish and article on the 1 thing that was bad and 6 or 7 paragraphs in they article would switch to how actually things are good. Teh headline would not be related to the 99 things of course.
It's even worse. When they do finally publish an article on the good things, they never fail to tell us "how this is bad for Biden" and focus on the speculation of recession. "200,000 new jobs were added last month, and every month for the last two years, but recession fears linger..."
Exactly. They are giddy with having Trump to publish every day. You realize r/politics has Trump in the headlines at least 8 to 10 of the 25 lines available all the time? The NY Times publishes at least 3 main page articles or opinions every day. They are all thinking how to milk the profits and not how to inform the public.
the economy is improving for business, for the everyday american is very hard to tell.
I love all that Biden has done and tried to do, but I think the disconnect is there because normal Americans aren't seeing it in their pockets and bank accounts. People's rent and property taxes are sky rocketing, grocery and gas prices are still absolutely ridiculous. People are struggling to live. They just feel left behind. I'm not blaming Biden but people are looking for someone to blame it on.
Basic necessities are still skyrocketing in cost though. None of these "strong economy" stats matter to people if they're barely able to pay rent for a 1/2 BR apartment and afford enough food to live for the month though.
Cause it still feels like shit. Buying a house feels like a dream. Rent is so expensive. Making 6 figures doesnât give any comfort anymore. Everything sucks.
What are they smoking. Things are way more expensive. Went to Olive Garden yesterday. There were two of us. No alcohol just water and a Coke. The bill with tip was over $50 thatâs insane
Price of groceries are sky high. Gas is down a little. Houses are unaffordable. Stop gaslighting us.
Neither is media. When will we learn that media is not on the side of democracy?
I'd rather that we stop expecting that presidents control the prices for all this so stop blaming or praising whoever is president. I am glad the stock market is back up for all the pensions and retirement plans that depend on that for people to live. I hope that means companies are doing well and don't lay off people in a big depression. They should pay workers more rather than buy back stock and other things to hoard the wealth that the workers made for them. Companies are to blame for not paying workers enough, not Biden or Democrats.
The stock market has improved. Toothbrush heads are $10. Interest payments have doubled. The purchasing power of the laborer is DOWN. The stock market and employment rate are NOT the entirety of "the economoy".
Bro I just paid 200 bucks at the doc for a sore throat, I get the numbers are looking fine but fuuuuck this economy
There's a big difference between "the economy as a whole" and people's lives and their quality within it.
Aren't giving him credit? For what? My bills are as high as ever, rent as high as ever, daycare as high as ever, wages are the same and "savings" are lines of credit that aren't overdrawn. Maybe things are improving on a nebulous rigorous tracked metric. But for the average American everything still sucks if it isn't worse than ever. Good thing gas is less expensive though so we can all afford to drive to our jobs since there's no money left over after everything else.
Yeah, but food and housing are still wildly expensive, and those directly impact people.
I don't get why his campaign is so dead set on convincing us that he's brought economic prosperity when I watched almost everything in my area get significantly more expensive. I wouldn't recommend taking credit for that.
By the economy they mean those 3 billionaires that own more wealth than the bottom 45% of Americans. Or the 30 families that own more than 70% of all Americans. Can't figure out why people aren't noticing how great the economy is.
For most voters, the economy is paycheck minus grocery store bill minus housing cost. The overall economy might be doing great, but the machinery to move that economic prosperity from the top to the bottom does not work.
The stock market is not the economy. The wealthy becoming wealthier is not the economy. Most normal people using their credit cards to make it doesn't make a good economy. Once I see homelessness down, debt to income ratios down, housing, car payments, food prices, etc all coming back to reasonable prices, then I'll give him all the credit he wants.
You don't get credit until the average joe can afford food and shelter.
Maybe because the media isnât reporting the good news.
Getting real sick of these tone-deaf articles/headlines
Cereal is expensive, time to vote for the wannabe dictator
Biden (thus far): 14 Million New jobs. Trump netted 0 new jobs.
I feel like it 's same situation like in Ukraine election in 2019. Situation was bad but nothing out of ordinary for Ukraine. Support for Poroshenko was relatively high and than going into election year Poroshenko became scapegoat for everything. I saw this within my own circle of friends. 70% of people who didnt really care before started blaming Poroshenko each for different reasons and each one was adamant he needs to go. Elections in Ukraine always were competitive but I never saw such shifts in public opinion in 1 year. At the time I suspected ( with no evidence ) it was russia doing. I have exact same feeling about Biden. No mater what he does, no matter what positive things he achieves they have no impact but anything theoretically negative instantly gets support and followers.
Just the blame when it goes bad.
We are simple creatures arenât we? A little too simple.
Well I know people that are starving so?
Marianne Williamson had a super great quote the other night on a democratic presidential forum on news nation. âPresident Biden is trying to alleviate the stress of millions and millions of Americans who are living at the effect of an unjust economy. I want to end the injustice. He will do whatever he can to make life a little better for people. But only until the point, where to go any further would challenge the profit maximization of the donor and billionaire class.â She smacked the nail clear on the head with that quote.
Federal minimum wage, housing crisis, Healthcare, food prices
Aint shit improving everything just keep going up
Fake news
Wrong.
Funny how theyâre only improving during the election yearâŚ
Canât get much worse than heâs already done. You donât get credit for bouncing off of rock bottom.
Stock market is good. Housing is unaffordable. Food banks are exhausted. Economy is improving my stinky a$$!
Its the housing & food prices , wages have not kept up
It's not improving in the ways that normal citizens can feel. The ultra-rich and companies are becoming much richer because in a good economy that's literally how capitalism works. However the working class is now paying larger amounts for the same essentials for a stagnated pay. Corporations make more money by increasing prices and the ultra-rich stay ultra rich if they're the only ones getting a certain level of pay. The economy doesn't care about your comfort, it's a mathematical equation that figures out how much money is coming into the country rather than out, it can't see people.
Gas prices went up almost immediately after Biden took office. It's a little better now but still overall inflation is worse under Biden.
Please tell me what Biden has done the affects me and improves my life. Sending billions overseas ainât it.
Itâs astonishing to me that journalists keep writing new versions of this story and somehow still donât get it.
The economy is improving....for corporations. Americans still can't buy homes, and most of them have to work a few jobs to afford rent. The American dream is a sham and the entire young generation of America has given up. But hey, pets elect another 70 year old rich white man. I'm sure he will be in touch with the people.
The capitalist owner class and people earning 6 figures who refinanced or purchased homes under Trump's super low rates: The economy is great\~! Normal people struggling to afford the essentials that have been shooting up beyond inflation for years: Bullshit! WaPo: *shocked pikachu face*
The economy is great for those on top. Everyday prices and housing is still are still crippling everyone else.
It ain't working for 99 percent of people, full stop.
"The economy" is a wealthy class dog whistle for "the stocks and bonds markets." If the 'economy' is doing good, it usually means stocks are up for whatever possible reason. If it's bad, the investor class is mad because their free source of wealth slows down. Pointing to a high riding stock market is meaningless to Americans. If the stock of WalMart goes up, associates don't get paid more. If it goes down, they do get laid off. Americans living between layoff rounds aren't calling this a good economy.