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.
The people who bought homes at 3% interest rates are doing fairly ok. The increases in Healthcare, food, and utilities really suck but are mostly manageable if your housing cost is fixed.
Until we see policy makers talking about how rent prices are outstripping any wage increases, a large portion of the population will continue to feel increasingly crushed and disenfranchised. Averages cease being useful measures when the difference between the budgeting with a fixed mortgage vs variable rent is so significant.
Fortunately, I am in the first group, but had been renting for a long time before that. A lot of people I care about are still renters or stuck living with family. Even though I’m comfortable, I can’t take anyone seriously who says this economy is healthy without addressing the millions of people struggling to make ends meet.
I really wish we’d see policy makers shift to measures of quality of life, including financial security, over raw economic metrics. Those metrics are even sometimes at odds to each other. For example, people fully owning durable homes and cars that don’t need much maintenance would increase their quality of life, but decrease measures of economic activity.
Need to bring back the mustache mayoral candidate guy.