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

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.

  • Fades@lemmy.world
    52·
    11 months ago

    Not at all. You’re missing the forest for the trees lmao

    The problem is that no matter how much inflation goes down, if the price gouging capitalists that own the grocery stores, the gas stations, and so on don’t stop.

    It’s not about rich people’s yacht it’s about the American people being taken advantage of simply because they can. The economy is doing a lot better, record low unemployment for example is a huge metric here but what difference does that make when the grocery stores are selling less for more money?

    You’re crying about rich people’s yachts when you should be crying about record price gouging without any cause. Those yachts don’t have impact on the average American’s QoL but price gouging absolutely does.

    • TheBananaKing@lemmy.world
      101·
      11 months ago

      When investors do better, nobody else does better. The whole system is based on harvesting wealth from society as a whole, and concentrating it in the top 1%. Ever hear of the Gini coefficient?

      Yes, price-gouging companies jacking up their prices and paying fuckall in wages are the direct instrument of suffering. But they do so in order to provide yacht money for the investor class, and in so doing they impoverish literally everyone else.