US consumers remain unimpressed with this progress, however, because they remember what they were paying for things pre-pandemic. Used car prices are 34% higher, food prices are 26% higher and rent prices are 22% higher than in January 2020, according to our calculations using PCE data.
While these are some of the more extreme examples of recent price increases, the average basket of goods and services that most Americans buy in any given month is 17% more expensive than four years ago.
The issue is the Republicans are correct. Are you better off now vs 4 years ago financially? For the majority of Americans, that’s a no. For almost all Americans that’s a no.
Even on MSNBC they never answer that question financially. It’s always about being locked up during Covid, stacking the courts, etc. The only thing doing better are stocks which are worthless until you cash them out. And the minority of people who job hopped.
Democrat voters aren’t idiots like republicans. Telling them you’re doing better when they factually are not will grind many peoples’ gears.
Yes the Biden years have not been some sort of economic triumph, but if you take the question at face value, how were things four years ago? They were horrible. Unemployment was record highs. Stocks had tanked. Hundreds of thousands of people were about to die. Etc etc etc.
That’s the problem with the binary decision, about the role of president, who doesn’t even make a lot of the critical economic decisions anyways.
The economy is not “good” but many indicators have been improving or are better than expected. But mishandling an event like a pandemic will certainly tank the economy, just like neoliberal policies will generally lead to a good stock market and little else.
But the Democrats are specifically touting you are better off financially. The whole pandemic thing and death and unemployment is a different topic. If you add up all the Americans that switched to a higher paying job in the past 4 years that offsets inflation I don’t know what the number would be.
If it’s 6 million jobs a year (6.4m in 2021) and 50% get a raise, that’s 3million peeps a year better off. 4 years, 12million people. 12/300 is 4%. So the economy is factually better for 4% of the country.
That’s not a “the economy is doing great!” slogan. That’s a “4% of the working class is doing great! The other 96% can suck rocks and like it”
Edited: The 50% came from a self reported study in 2022 that said 50% of respondents said they were paid the same or more in their new job. Even if it was 5% more they’re included in the above number. So I feel this is a very generous number of 4%.