It's kind of crazy that with so many opinions on economics, no one ever mentions the most obvious things.
When elite papers say the "economy is doing well," what they usually mean is "the GDP is going up way higher than other places." What exactly is a GDP? It's literally the total sum of money SPENT by government, consumers, and businesses combined (this is the textbook definition, and how it's calculated).
When prices of stuff go up by 25% because there's a shortage of labor, or shortage of material, or shortage of infrastructural efficiency, by definition the GDP goes up 25%. There isn't any increase in life quality, nor any increase in the amount of stuff produced. This is why people feel like the economy is complete shit, while all the numbers point to the economy is doing well, and all the institutions that rely on these data (think tanks, policymakers, journalists) are baffled why people don't feel the same.
In contrast, in places that produce things very cheaply, if the export goes down, its GDP numbers will go down by definition. This in turn causes an overflow of goods internally, and prices paid by internal consumers even lower, therefore decreasing the GDP numbers even more. This is the opposite of the above scenario, where people are getting better things for cheaper, and their lives are improving without any increase in total compensation. All the while the numbers are telling a different story.
I think GDP might have been one of the biggest red herrings for policymakers. It's distorting their view of what's going well and what isn't.