CNN Poll: Half of Americans think the economy is getting worse, despite months of stronger economic news | CNN Politics
3 years ago by captainjman2 to c/politics
Yeah, according to a Federal Reserve survey from earlier this year "only 63% of adults surveyed said they would cover an unexpected $400 expense using cash or its equivalent, down from 68% the year before. Many noted they would lean on credit cards or family members to manage such a bill. About 13% said they wouldn’t be able to cover such an expense by any means."
Upper middle class and above households have been doing great, but everyone else is in a bad way and getting worse.
Rent costs are down? Where??? What's a "real wage"? Do you have anything to back any of this up or are we just guessing?
Probably just cherry-picked data, tbh.
Rent costs are down year over year for two and a half years straight
You have no idea what you are talking about. Rent has more than doubled. I know people living in shitty 1 bedroom apartments who pay more than twice what I pay for my mortgage on a fairly average house.
You should try looking at it some time. An apartment that was $700 5 years ago is now around $2000 in my area. And this is a low cost of living area where people aren't exactly desperate to live.
A retirement account, stocks, or a pension are all just money on paper. Yeah, it's nice to see that number go up, but you either have to wait years to see it, or have to pay taxes once you get there, or both.
Not dismissing the effect that Biden has had on the economy, in spite of Republican fuckery. But it's a mistake to point at the Stock Market and tell people who can't pay their bills now that its all OK.
Not at all, all I'm saying is that most people look at the money they make as "take-home pay", where they don't even see the taxes until it's time to file. While when they look at their 401k nest egg, it's the opposite: they will owe the money when they cash out, and it will be invisible until then.
Maybe people can't afford stocks when wages are suppressed and they're struggling to pay for rent and food. Maybe stocks shouldn't exist when their only purpose is to extract wealth from the working class. 🤷♀️
I didn't have any fucking money back then either!
Ah, so not me then
So, for old people it's fucking wonderful.
I'll never be able to retire. I'll be taking out the 9mm plan when I'm too old to work.
I'm 31 with no degree and no retirement savings. I'm doomed and therapy isn't going to help with that.
How many 9mm's does that cost?
Those things are very important, but unless you have some significant dividends, I don't think they help people with the level of price increase that we see right now.
Ding ding ding!
If a company can extract more value out of its workers while paying them less, that means the company is doing good. If this happens across a bunch of companies, that means the economy is doing good. All because they're getting more value from our labor than the crumbs they toss to us.
As others have already stated, the job market is fine, the stocks are fine, but the ability to afford living day to day is worse than I have ever remembered. Here in my cheaper state here are some random prices:
- A bag of Doritos is over $7.
- Beef shortage makes ground beef for a family of 4 $14
- Gas prices are over $3.70
- My grocery bill increased by nearly 50% overall and we are buying less on top of that
- Car prices are through the roof, making it impossible for people like me to change cars (I’m hearing they are going to drop again soon)
- Rent prices are soaring to the point where it isn’t sustainable
- Interest rate keeps rising
Yeah, "the economy" doesn't mean anything.
More commerce just means more money changing hands. Unemployment rate just measures jobs. None of this impacts the average person.
Buying power is down and has been dropping for longer than I've been alive. This especially impacts the low and vanishing middle class Americans.
Exactly. It all depends on which metrics you're looking at, and some are not even being looked at, conveniently enough for those with more money.
Buying power is not going down. Do you at least have a source for that?
I think you might be talking about the productivity-pay gap but it has nothing to do with purchasing power.
Inflation adjusted wages are going up: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LES1252881600Q
The way cpi is measured makes it a flawed indicator. It's essentially been designed to minimize the appearance of inflation.
https://www.brightworkresearch.com/...
Pick a period and do a median-to-median comparison of income to expense. Rent/home price, tuition, groceries, direct item-to-item is usually bad.
Then consider the new expenses many people take on. A cell phone every few years, a laptop, the cost of recreation.
Most people are in a horrible position compared to any period in the last century.
Don't get me wrong, many many things have improved. But economic outlook is NOT one of them.
I don’t agree with putting home prices in cpi, because a small number of home sales would dramatically swing inflation, so yeah while it’s a really critical number for people looking to buy a home it is not a good litmus test for the average purchasing power when there are better imputed metrics like “owner cost or equivalent rent”.
$7 for a bag of Doritos is ABSURD
Groceries and gas is still inflated. Services are steadily raising rates and some people are still not being paid a living wage.
That's because (yes, others here beat me to it) -- the economy is not the stock market. People's costs of living and wages aren't getting better, they're getting worse, even as giant corps have record profits and that is reflected on the stock tickers. If the average person was heavily invested early on in some of these corporate behemoths and could actually share in the rapacious profits, maybe things would be different... but that's not the case.
Woah now!
That's starting to sound like Socialism and having public ownership
a society with an economic underpinning that meaingfully lifts all boats with a rising tide?! that... would be un-american! gotta have winners and loosers to feed that zero-sum game they love so much.
and dont even MENTION the Norwegian Sovereign Wealth Fund!
Neoliberal heads would explode left and right!
If you need losers in order to have winners, we should all be doing really well right now thanks to Trump.
Been to a grocery store lately? Looked at rent prices? How about clothing? Gas? Basic necessities?
People think the economy's getting worse because it IS for consumers. I don't really give a shit if a company is paying less for grain than they did a year ago if the prices they charge for the final product havn't gone down!
Until basic costs of living start decreasing, most people aren't going to see any positive change.
Yeah, this kind of headline has no bearing on 99% of people's lives, it's just corporate gaslighting to try to keep the population sedated.
That's because no matter how well stock prices are doing, it still costs substantially more to buy groceries than it did last year, by way of example. The average American is screwed just as hard with a good economy as a bad one, and the poorer you are, the rawer the screwing.
No one measures the economy based on stock prices.
Inflation is going down, real wages are going up, unemployment is down.
When toxic "econimistism" comes home to roost. A "strong economy" as measured by stock markets and company profits, both owned primarily by the extremely wealthy is not the same as "working class people are doing well economically", which is what should be meant by "a strong economy" if it were not for the neoliberal brain rot.
Honestly. There needs to be (probably is and I'm unaware) an index that measures the Average Joe ™️ economy health. So not just like the big Mac index, but a measure of how have the average Americans in the lower to middle class have gained increased take-home pay, reduced debt, asset valuation appreciation, and more indicators that actually increase their day to day life and financial situation.
There’s a FRED series called real disposable income: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/A229RX0
Which is after-tax personal income adjusted for inflation.
That is literally the deal in Boston, MA. Where the going rate for a 1 bedroom apartment is in the ballpark of $2500 USD/month. Exactly half of my take-home income.
Oh, that's without factoring in utilities.
Pretty sure it’s measured by gdp
Months of gaslighting that they were doing great didn't work out so well. Being told wages are up, inflation down, economy great while wondering how they are gonna pay rent contradicted the desired message.
Agreed. Yeah wages are up and inflation is down compared to last year. But so long as inflation is higher than wage growth then people will continue to lose ground financially.
Corporations and the 1% keep posting record profits.
The rest of us keep having to pay higher prices.
CNN: Why do many Americans think the economy is getting worse?? It's working as designed.
Corporate profits are relatively flat as a percentage of national income (it has gone up a bit since COVID): https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/A445RE1A156NBEA
People always seem to remember to adjust wages for inflation but understandably because of media headlines almost never adjust profits for inflation.
Major corporations in America hide most of their profits. If you listen to their earnings calls, they'll still be boasting about record profits.
So if they’re hidden how do you know they are at record levels?
As per my last comment:
If you listen to their earnings calls, they’ll still be boasting about record profits.
I mean, I do. The job market is probably the best it's been in decades. The economy is doing extremely well. Food prices are high because two of the world's largest grain producers are fighting a war with one another.
Also because wages are still stagnant and costs keep going up. On average, the economy is doing great, but that news to the people on the bottom is just an indicator of how much they are being exploited.
But that isn't entirely true.
"wages are still stagnant"
Wages saw the biggest bump in decades just a couple of years back. The article is from late 2021, and while that feels like it was an eternity ago, the reality is that it was less than 2 years ago.
"costs keep going up"
US inflation is the lowest of almost all industrialized nations - down to 2.97% right now, compared to 3X that a year ago.
US inflation is the lowest of almost all industrialized nations - down to 2.97% right now, compared to 3X that a year ago.
Tell me why I should give a shit when my grocery costs have more than doubled since 2020 and have yet to come down. Inflation rate is meaningless for those of us not in the top 1%. What good is it to me to hear the inflation rate was only 3% last month if a bag of cereal still costs $7? Should I simply be grateful that things aren't getting worse, faster?
Your grocery costs have not doubled.
doubled since 2020
You're just being a drama queen.
Lots of real, actual data there that I am sure you will claim is false even without looking at it.
Wages went up, now this is the counter attack.
Can't let the poors gain anything.
I don’t understand why people have trouble finding current data: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LES1252881600Q
Rent is up, grocery prices are up, gas is up again, pay hasn't kept up with inflation, corporate profits at all time highs and Powell at the Fed is literally trying to weaken labors negotiating power, but sure it's the media brainwashing people...
The economy is fantastic for like the 10% of the country who owns 75% of the country's junk
Or maybe... just maybe... this is backwards and the notable thing is that statistics have been cited in support of a claim that the economy is improving, despite the fact that at least half of Americans believe that it isn't.
Yeah I mean, gains on Wall Street may be considered "stronger economic news" by some, but it tends to matter for relatively few.
A strong economy doesn't rely on news stories about Wall St. If I see my money going further, I take it as strong economic news. If I see my wages go up, I take it as strong economic news. If I ever see rents go down, or housing in general become more affordable, or literally anything that affects most common people in a positive way based on some financial change, I'll take it as strong economic news.
Wall St making more money? Not strong economic news. Just stories that highlight how the rich continue to get richer and how out of touch one small subset of the population is from the rest.
“Months of stronger economic news”. Oh you mean propaganda? The economy is getting worse. Price gouging and job losses are an easy way to gauge things.
People don’t need news to know how fucked up their shit is. All they have to do is experience it and then they’ll know themselves the truth. You won’t get this take from the news because they are gaslighting you.
Half of Americans are lying because reality doesn't suit their narrative.
Alright, no one has said it yet. People's view of how the economy is often strongly related to their political party. So it wouldn't surprise me if half of people always believe the economy is getting worse.
By most metrics, the economy is still gloomy long term. It's a prediction over the course of years not months.
Consider the great depression, the economy was fucked months before the stock market crashed, but if you only looked at the stock market to determine that, you would think everything was fine up until it was too late.
I recommend watching wealthion and anyone they interview on their channel.
Looking at the mid term election results, current voters seem to value social policy over economic policy (it should have been a right wing blow out, but it wasn't)
I wouldnt say bad news about the economy is due to an election cycle. The average boomer is a year past retirement now. There are going to be huge consequences over the next 10 years because of this as their children will need to take care of them, and there won't be more kids than parents which our society is used to to fill in the labor gap as the boomers leave.
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Who’s it getting better for? Wall Street? Prices on shit keeps fucking going up. My paycheck ain’t.
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