No. of Recommendations: 8
All very good points about the current economy.
But if you want to understand why US voters are unhappy about the economy, you just need to look at three charts:
https://www.bls.gov/charts/consumer-price-index/co...https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MORTGAGE30UShttps://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/hist/LeafHandler.ashx...It's great to have low unemployment. But most people have jobs, so going from something like 4.1% to 3.7% doesn't affect a lot of people.
That's not what voters are unhappy about. Instead, the first is that
prices are still really high. Not
just the rate of inflation - but that they still get sticker shock when they go to the grocery store or the gas station. Though the rate of inflation is still
really high compared to recent historical norms - before the recent spike, the last time inflation had topped 3% was back in 2011, and was typically between 1-2%. People
don't like 3% inflation, and touting that inflation has come down from 9% to 3% is not a winning argument. Nor is the fact that gas prices have fallen from $5 per gallon to $3.30 per gallon, when they were closer to $2.50-2.75 per gallon before the pandemic.
And then there's interest rates, which are at generational highs and affect both consumer debt and mortgage debt (linked above). Again, far more people are affected by high costs of buying a house or a car than they are by a half-point reduction in unemployment rates.
That's why no so few people are happy with the economy. Prices are
so much higher than they were eighteen months ago, and interest rates are at levels we haven't seen in twenty years. Unless
those things start changing - and fast - the "Biden Economy" will be an anchor, not a balloon, in the coming election cycle.
