Nearly three in five Americans wrongly believe the US is in an economic recession, and the majority blame the Biden administration, according to a Harris poll conducted exclusively for the Guardian. The survey found persistent pessimism about the economy as election day draws closer.
The poll highlighted many misconceptions people have about the economy, including:
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55% believe the economy is shrinking, and 56% think the US is experiencing a recession, though the broadest measure of the economy, gross domestic product (GDP), has been growing.
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49% believe the S&P 500 stock market index is down for the year, though the index went up about 24% in 2023 and is up more than 12% this year.
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49% believe that unemployment is at a 50-year high, though the unemployment rate has been under 4%, a near 50-year low.
This is a good write up thanks.
What bothers me is that in his state of the union address he spent time talking about junk fees with Ticketmaster et. al. (which is a problem) yet never really touched on the bigger problem of housing costs. Nor is there any real push by his administration or the Democrats to address this issue any time soon. Like you I don’t know if this is intentional or ignorance due to his advisors.
It’s a frustrating place to be because I know that Trump gives even less of a shit about the “poors” and would make things even worse. So a large part of this country’s population will sit in the status quo for a minimum of 4 more years hoping that the next round of elections will bring in something new and progressive.
FWIW, the Biden administration is doing a decent amount of behind the scenes work on housing costs, both directly (funding low income housing) and indirectly (incentivising cities to change laws that decrease supply and prop up the local landlords). Some of the reasons (IMO) he doesn’t talk much about this are:
Is it stupid? Absolutely!
Is Biden doing enough on housing? Definitely not!
But a big chunk of what he is doing is flying under the radar, partially because they’re not advertising it and partially because it takes longer than just one presidential term for these kinds of projects to make it to fruition. The first development in my city that took advantage of Biden administration policies finally broke ground in September. The first actual affordable unit to come out of it will be available in 2025.
It’s good to know that this administration is doing something to help directly or indirectly. And if there is a constant in the world of American politics its Democrats don’t have a clue how to sell their agenda or legislative wins to the public.
But it doesn’t have to be that way. There has to be smart people that would want to work with this reelection campaign that can craft sound bites and advertising that promotes what they have done. And do it in a way that isn’t scary to the donor base.
Trump lies constantly but he’s also very blunt and realistic about problems (as long as he can disclaim responsibility for their cause). Do you think Trump will avoid talking about this as it gets closer to election time? No, he’s going to be blunt and realistic and pragmatic sounding and Biden will come off as out of touch to the incredibly large base of quiet regular lower middle class and middle class people affected by this. Probably 40% of the vote will be won based on how people are feeling about this and Biden is responding to that by saying “Actually, you’re feelings about the economy are invalid because according to my policy wonks, the economic data is good.” It’s insulting and enraging to the people who are struggling. Many lower middle class and middle class people don’t care that much about abortion or trans issues or whether Trump is a pathological liar being paid by a foreign country to destabilize America. They just want to be able to pay their bills and not be so damned stressed out. Biden absolutely does not get it. This is also the fault of the officials surrounding Biden who should be doing a better job of addressing these problems. Biden is very old and generously ran against Trump out of kindness because he knew he’d be more likely to win. The people around him should be addressing this, the DC insiders and people he took with him into office, and no one addresses the problem or crafts policy. This is an easy win for Trump and he knows it, Trump is not stupid contrary to what many want to imply, he’s enormously intelligent and just mean at times and cruel towards many minorities, but Trump needs to do barely anything to win at this point. You don’t get into Wharton as an idiot, even if you come from money, so liberals who want to claim he’s stupid are doing themselves a disservice by underestimating Trump. Trump is greedy and corrupt and cruel and incredibly intelligent, and if you don’t get the fourth part you miss the threat. Trump also at times has good intentions and people sense that, which is also a threat because he doesn’t seem completely disingenuous. Biden’s campaign is like the Titanic in a field of icebergs and all Trump has to do is just wait. For Biden to win, he’d have to make a lot of changes which he should have done over a year ago, and based on the team around him that hasn’t dealt with the problems correctly, he’s probably not going to make the right choices on this. If he makes superficial meaningless gestures on this issues in a last minute hail mary pass, it’s not going to matter. Voters aren’t stupid. I wish I could write Biden or his team and tell them what they should do, but I’m some nobody. No one would care.