Current Events > Majority of Americans wrongly believe US is in recession

(+) Yeah! (+)

Thanks mainstream media.

And also thanks companies for their great price gouging

Whiterun_Guard_ posted...

Is Biden going to do anything to combat greedflation?

No and neither will Republicans. Both parties worship muh free market capitalism too much to do something like that.

The economy does its own thing regardless of whos in office. The downwind effects of Democrats passing the squirrel poop act to give a random corporation $500 or Republicans cutting regulations and taxes for the wealthy dont immediately change the winds of local markets for the average person today.

So its dumb to defend the economy or hate it based on how much you like or dislike the president.

Lol, eggs

I eat eggs every day. A carton of a dozen eggs is like $1.89

The numbers look good but they're looking at the wrong numbers.

[LFAQs-redacted-quote]

Telephone surveys are famously very accurate for understanding the populace.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/2/23825498.jpg

Kradek posted...

Earlier I posted a source from the EPI outlining how nominal wage growth has actually increased at a rate outpacing inflation and we've never had such strongly consistent employment numbers/added jobs since like Carter's term. I think the real issue is people don't want to research and just accept whatever their vibe is on something as fact.

12% growth of nominal wages for disadvantaged groups barely makes up for how far behind they were in the first place, though.

I definitely agree that people are going off of vibes, but that doesn't mean their suffering isn't happening. It's not even what EPI's report claims. These people might not remember 2008 perfectly, but they remember getting their second foreclosure notice and past due cancelation bills plenty well.

You're right that no one should use the stock market as a single point about the economy's performance and how people are directly affected by that economic activity. I apologize if it seemed like I was singling you out. (I was honestly just responding to the article itself and hadn't read the discussion up until that point lol.)

[LFAQs-redacted-quote]

That's somewhat the point. Phone polling is notoriously one of the worst ways to poll for almost everything and is going to give you as far from the "average American" as is possible. While not as bad as in Truman's time they are still going to be primarily getting responses from older (ie. retirement age), uppper/middle-class white people far more than the population as a whole even now. Phone polling is useful for some things, but with the average person being explicitly wary of unknown numbers at this point the skew is terrible for who you get.

And your problem is also what I mentioned before when pointing out the prices of groceries in the statistic in that it doesn't really represent the issue at all. Averages are terrible for most things in politics because the average person doesn't exist: the small amount of extremely rich people drag everything up and destroy the validity of using averages. Hence why the median is never used as it highlights what the average person is going to actually be dealing with: it isn't susceptible to the high end of things completely breaking the equation. Poor people historically had specific things that were cheaply available that are now no longer cheap, which explicitly flies in the face of "everyone is just so much better off," in part because those things fall outside of the generic line of what people care about.

FYI these are the other stats these people answered:

• 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.
• 49% believe that unemployment is at a 50-year high, though the unemployment rate has been under 4%, a near 50-year low.

Sounds like the people who answered this were largely really fucking dumb cause that doesn't seem like merely being misinformed.

Kradek posted...

FYI these are the other stats these people answered:

* 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.
* 49% believe that unemployment is at a 50-year high, though the unemployment rate has been under 4%, a near 50-year low.

Sounds like the people who answered this were largely really fucking dumb cause that doesn't seem like merely being misinformed.

It's legitimately about the "vibes", though yes I'm sure either misinformation or being willfully ignorant of these things is a possibility.

It sucks having to pay more while you don't see any tangible benefit which can pretty easily color your beliefs.

I hate how things are currently in that regard but that's entirely me, I know what I see is separate from the big picture.

The Data doesn't mean much if the reality for most simply isnt reflecting it.

Prismsblade posted...

The Data doesn't mean much if the reality for most simply isnt reflecting it.

Indeed. The main takeaway seems to be that we should start measuring economic prosperity differently.

emblem-man posted...

I agree for eggs as I do buy that a lot and that one was noticeable, but in the sense that it used to be really cheap at $1.5 but now costs an additional $1-2 a week

Not sure if mentioned already, but the egg situation is/was entirely different than the situation for other grocery items. Egg prices went up because of a massive outbreak of avian flu. It was way underreported or people just didn't pay attention for some reason.

R_Jackal posted...

It's legitimately about the "vibes", though yes I'm sure either misinformation or being willfully ignorant of these things is a possibility.

It sucks having to pay more while you don't see any tangible benefit which can pretty easily color your beliefs.

I hate how things are currently in that regard but that's entirely me, I know what I see is separate from the big picture.

How can Biden combat bad vibes is the question

Shadow_Don posted...

Not sure if mentioned already, but the egg situation is/was entirely different than the situation for other grocery items. Egg prices went up because of a massive outbreak of avian flu. It was way underreported or people just didn't pay attention for some reason.

Oh I'm aware, but most people don't seem to or don't care, so I don't even bother trying to fight that battle

Prismsblade posted...

The Data doesn't mean much if the reality for most simply isnt reflecting it.

What data should be presented?

I personally think a large portion of the bad feeling is due to housing, which is why I try to speak to housing issues so much.
People want cheap housing.
But the steps needed to actually achieve more affordable housing are not popular steps for most people. Imagine if Biden started making speeches about how we need to upzone all cities to build denser housing, rethink unnecessary regulations that make building homes slow, and remove cities and states from controlling the housing in their areas.
It'd be a fucking massacre. Right wingers would say he's waging a war against suburbs, home owners would fear their home values decreasing, etc.