Didn't they just fail payroll because of the frozen payments from USAID which they said they weren't receiving?
Voters were right about the economy
61–70 of 103 posts
Re: Voters were right about the economy
#62Earlier quoted context omitted.
>It has only been adjusted for inflation. What else are you expecting? Raises every couple of years for a job well done?
Inflation doesn't typically cover cost of living, does it? A poverty line basket of goods is different than someone wealthy. And is rent/real estate cost increases and insurance covered?
Yes, the CPI includes rent (and owner's imputed rent).
Re: Voters were right about the economy
#63Earlier quoted context omitted.
> You're saying It's the author's argument. I'm just trying to interpret it correctly. > X + Y is generally higher than just X, yes. The author's point is that their rate, the higher rate, is a better reflection of how the voters are doing economically and explains why their perception of the economy can be very different than the perception of many leaders in Washington, who are puzzled about why the voters are upse…
>The author's point is that their rate, the higher rate, is a better reflection of how the voters are doing economically and explains why their perception of the economy can be very different than the perception of many leaders in Washington, who are puzzled about why the voters are upset. Right, but that doesn't explain why voters are suddenly mad now. American consumer sentiment has deviated from "fundamentals" sin…
Who says they're suddenly mad now? The voters have thrown out two incumbent Presidents in a row and switched political parties three Presidential elections in a row.
Unfortunately for them, there's a political duopoly.
Re: Voters were right about the economy
#64Earlier quoted context omitted.
AFAICT the article was written by the guy that germinated the concept in the first place. You can see the paper at https://cdn.prod.website-files.com/63ba0d84fe573c7513595d6e/... tl;dr It is very highly correlated to U-3. The paper doesn't include 2024 in the data series but the figure the article cites, 23.7%, is very near all-time best. That's pretty deceptive framing IMO.
I feel like you both may be missing the point. The article isn't just about the present. It takes a very long view: > The problem isn’t that some Americans didn’t come out ahead after four years of Bidenomics. Some did. It’s that, for the most part, those living in more modest circumstances have endured at least 20 years of setbacks > The bottom line is that, for 20 years or more, including the months prior to the el…
The proposed measure is highly correlated with U-3, so as time-series they should basically tell the same story. If the assertion is "U-3 doesn't predict this phenomenon but this other measure does" it's likely to be wrong since the signals are roughly equal to a constant factor. For the entire data range depicted in the paper this property holds. Is it possible that back in $GOOD_OLD_DAYS this isn't true? Well I'd like to see the data but I don't have time to chase it down and none has been offered to support that claim.
Re: Voters were right about the economy
#65The article is pretty clearly politically motivated. Thr argument is XYZ number doesn't capture everything and the absolute number is higher. Which may be true, but for U3 unemployment that has always been true! The fact is every unemplpyment metric you look at is at a historical low. So regardless of what they are or aren't capturing they are all better than they've been in decades. In relative terms the economy has…
Yes, saying "the voters were right" is not really justified by the evidence presented. According to the article, economic reality isn't reflected in the government numbers and has not been for many years. But since the gap was present in both the Biden Administration and the first Trump term, it doesn't explain the voters' preference for Trump. When you factor in the economic impact of the pandemic and the strength of the US recovery, then regardless of the systematic gap the record actually suggests a much better economic record for Biden than Trump.
A more plausible explanation is that the Republicans were able to persuade many Americans that the economic problems caused by the pandemic were the fault of the Democrats. Blaming the other side for historical accident is a tried-and-true campaign strategy, and the pandemic provided a perfect opportunity to put it to use for 2024.
Re: Voters were right about the economy
#66The article is pretty clearly politically motivated. Thr argument is XYZ number doesn't capture everything and the absolute number is higher. Which may be true, but for U3 unemployment that has always been true! The fact is every unemplpyment metric you look at is at a historical low. So regardless of what they are or aren't capturing they are all better than they've been in decades. In relative terms the economy has…
Those economic gains are not felt by a majority of the population. That was clear by the election, and would be clear to you if you stepped out of your own echo chamber. Nobody wants to hear about U3 unemployment when they can't afford childcare, groceries, medicine, all of which have inflated significantly. For folks who were already living paycheck to paycheck, of which there are many, these explanations are both patronizing and out of touch with the lived experience of most of the population.
Re: Voters were right about the economy
#67The article is pretty clearly politically motivated. Thr argument is XYZ number doesn't capture everything and the absolute number is higher. Which may be true, but for U3 unemployment that has always been true! The fact is every unemplpyment metric you look at is at a historical low. So regardless of what they are or aren't capturing they are all better than they've been in decades. In relative terms the economy has…
The economy is fine, but we are in a gilded age of income and wealth inequality. The 3 richest men in the world increased their wealth by roughly an order of magnitude in about a decade, meanwhile minimum wage hasn't moved in a quarter century.
Re: Voters were right about the economy
#68The article is pretty clearly politically motivated. Thr argument is XYZ number doesn't capture everything and the absolute number is higher. Which may be true, but for U3 unemployment that has always been true! The fact is every unemplpyment metric you look at is at a historical low. So regardless of what they are or aren't capturing they are all better than they've been in decades. In relative terms the economy has…
The economy is fine, but we are in a gilded age of income and wealth inequality. The 3 richest men in the world increased their wealth by roughly an order of magnitude in about a decade, meanwhile minimum wage hasn't moved in a quarter century.
And wealth inequality means power inequality. It's not really democracy if you can buy elections and buy your way into a government job
Re: Voters were right about the economy
#69The article is pretty clearly politically motivated. Thr argument is XYZ number doesn't capture everything and the absolute number is higher. Which may be true, but for U3 unemployment that has always been true! The fact is every unemplpyment metric you look at is at a historical low. So regardless of what they are or aren't capturing they are all better than they've been in decades. In relative terms the economy has…
Those economic gains are not felt by a majority of the population. That was clear by the election, and would be clear to you if you stepped out of your own echo chamber. Nobody wants to hear about U3 unemployment when they can't afford childcare, groceries, medicine, all of which have inflated significantly. For folks who were already living paycheck to paycheck, of which there are many, these explanations are both p…
I’d love to see some data supporting this argument because I’ve heard it over and over from people all over the political spectrum the past few years but it just doesn’t line up with any data. You act like they’re quoting abstract numbers which are meaningless compared to people’s “lived experience” but unemployment is a large part of people’s experience. Furthermore, inflation adjusted wages are up (with the highest gains in the lowest 50% of earners). If these statistics aren’t fully capturing people’s experiences, I’m sure every economist in the world would love to know what metrics are better. Instead it seems perceptions about the state of the economy have become more tightly coupled to
the media atmosphere than anything measurable.
Re: Voters were right about the economy
#70Earlier quoted context omitted.
Those economic gains are not felt by a majority of the population. That was clear by the election, and would be clear to you if you stepped out of your own echo chamber. Nobody wants to hear about U3 unemployment when they can't afford childcare, groceries, medicine, all of which have inflated significantly. For folks who were already living paycheck to paycheck, of which there are many, these explanations are both p…
I’d love to see some data supporting this argument because I’ve heard it over and over from people all over the political spectrum the past few years but it just doesn’t line up with any data. You act like they’re quoting abstract numbers which are meaningless compared to people’s “lived experience” but unemployment is a large part of people’s experience. Furthermore, inflation adjusted wages are up (with the highest…
If the anecdotes are not matching up with the data maybe the data is not measured right. Economics is not a science. Given that for profit media is already tightly coupled with the economy, and supported by advertising, the incentive would be for them to create a narrative that the economy is doing well. Consumer confidence is necessary to continue their model of making money through advertising. Righteous consumers of the media have incentive to promote its narratives to make themselves seem more worldly and educated, and that's how we end up with arguments denying the lived experience of "people all over the political spectrum the past few years". The people who have been saying that are not the ones with incentive to lie to you.