President Joe Biden goes into next year’s election with a vexing challenge: Just as the U.S. economy is getting stronger, people are still feeling horrible about it.
Pollsters and economists say there has never been as wide a gap between the underlying health of the economy and public perception. The divergence could be a decisive factor in whether the Democrat secures a second term next year. Republicans are seizing on the dissatisfaction to skewer Biden, while the White House is finding less success as it tries to highlight economic progress.
“Things are getting better and people think things are going to get worse — and that’s the most dangerous piece of this," said Democratic pollster Celinda Lake, who has worked with Biden. Lake said voters no longer want to just see inflation rates fall — rather, they want an outright decline in prices, something that last happened on a large scale during the Great Depression.
“Honestly, I’m kind of mystified by it,” she said.
“My rent is going up and food and gas are more expensive. My tooth hurts but I can’t afford to get it fixed, and now my check engine light is on.”
“ACTUALLY median income is up!”
Do you see how that’s not helping?
Health care is actually hugely underestimated, here. Health costs have been going up decade over decade and people’s health problems have been stacking up. While in the '70s and '80s people could get treatment, someone born in those years started out with the ability to get medical care but has increasingly lost access as they’ve gone through their lives.
Those people are getting older, now, and it’s getting to the point where they can’t just ignore the stuff they can’t afford. Conditions that would have been easy to treat (but often rare/expensive) are becoming chronic, fatal, or debilitating.
Life expectancy is starting to drop and while that drop is largely due to COVID (which, by itself, is an insane thing) it’s also a warning sign about what’s to come.
Gas is actually the one thing I’ve noticed that has been a lot better lately. But everything else is still expensive from the crazy greedflation every company was trying to pull when we were tolerating post-pandemic cost rises.
Gas prices are one of the few economic indicators most people are aware of, sometimes painfully. If Biden wants to turn sentiments around, lowering those more would probably be the most effective means.
Yes, Biden should pull the magic gas lever for Americans! What is he waiting for??
Prices go up every year, it’s by how much matters. For example, rent has been going up slower than inflation for a year now. For every person whose rent went up, there must be a lot of people who don’t go online to verify their rent did not go up
You’ve got numbers on the brain. Think like a human.
We’re living in some of the best economy of our lives. Was nobody here alive in 2009?
I was. The economy didn’t feel much different. Barely had anything left at the end of the month and a major expense would bankrupt me, just like today.
Except for all the people who lost their jobs back then, yeah, no different