The economy is working perfectly fine for the people that own it.
Real wages are up for three straight years; they were unmoved or negative for nearly four decades before that. Your feelings about the economy don’t matter when the data all goes in the other direction
Your feelings about the economy don’t matter when the data all goes in the other direction
Except its not “all the data”. Its “the data we’ve always used to measure this up to now”.
The disconnect is that classic measurements of national economic health used to reflect the earning and spending power of average Americans. So using the same basket of measures and things that can affect those was a valid approach. In recent years those measurements don’t reflect average Americans anymore. Inflation has eaten away at the value of savings impacting older Americans. High interest rates are now acting as a double whammy for young Americans that need borrow for higher education as well as first time home buyers, but the costs of both have risen sharply in the last 20 years. So while the high cost has been a problem, the now high interest rates are a force multiplier stepping on the necks of young Americans.
I don’t disagree that Biden’s actions have improved classic measurements. Those are still valid and useful for where they apply. I disagree that those measurements still reflect the experience of regular Americans. Thats a problem that extra economic measures should be included when looking at the experience of regular Americans.
This. Buying power of the average American has decreased drastically. If you worked for the last five years and your pay has changed you’ve technically made less money every year as the power of the dollar has diminished. If you’re on a fixed income it feels even worse.
Your feelings about the economy don’t matter when the data all goes in the other direction
Except its not “all the data”. Its “the data we’ve always used to measure this up to now”.
I hear you saying an apples-to-apples comparison to show a point is … somehow bad.
Sometimes I just don’t know what people want.
I hear you saying an apples-to-apples comparison to show a point is … somehow bad.
You’re gonna have to grow out of just thinking there are only two outcomes: “good” and “bad”. The world is more complicated than that. The classic indicators don’t reflect the modern average American experience anymore. They were chosen in a different time under different circumstances. They were chosen when a college education cost a couple of thousand dollars a year, a average blue color worker could buy a brand new car every two years, and a small house was easily affordable for a single income earner with the other staying at home raising kids. Clearly you can see how this is now out-of-date with modern American life.
They’re fine as a useful apples-to-apples comparison to national economic health, but today fail to show what average Americans experience.
Sometimes I just don’t know what people want.
Introduce some nuance into your worldview and that may help you understand.
They seem to be pretty thorough
There are plenty of problems with CPI, one of which is the very issue of “feelings”. Owners equivalent rent is absolutely irrelevant to actual rent costs. It’s just how much a homeowner says they would charge if they were to rent out their place. These are not the people renting out units…they’re just someone who happened to have enough money to buy a house. WTF do they know.
Peasants, We have increased your daily crumb rations by 1.2%. Be grateful for that.
However, we are reducing the size of crumbs by 7%
Are they? I got a 3% ‘raise’ again this year and that doesn’t seem like it’s keeping up with inflation. And yes yes get a different job, blah blah.
Two things:
- Judging by the increase in prices reported by many as well as shrinkflation, Official Inflation Figures in the US might be very understated, which would make that “real” part of real wage rise be complete total bollocks, since a wage adjusted to a smaller inflation index value than reality is not in fact “real”. Considering that understating Official Inflation not only helps in political propaganda like the “real wages” one but also mathematically feeds to a higher GDP Growth figure (in simple terms: the unaccounted for inflation appear as “growth”) which is also heavilly featured in political propaganda, it’s pretty naive to think that there isn’t political pressure to “adjust” that figure down, especially in an election year.
- Independently of that, it’s perfectly possible for the average real wage (which is what’s reported) to be going up whilst the median real wage (which is more representative of most people’s experience and is not what’s reported) to be stagnant or even falling: all it takes is for the top earners to be getting significant raises to pull the average up enough that it disguises everybody else not getting such raises.
PS: To add to my second point, here’s an interesting chart. Even though it’s an overall unweighted nominal (so, not real) value and it’s a 3 month moving average (so the effects are shown delayed) you can see a spike and subsequent fall towards the trend in 2023. Now look at this inflation chart and you can see that the median salary growth is delayed from inflation and never actually managed to be as high as the actual inflation. This actually brings up a 3rd point I hadn’t considered:
- The salary growth is delayed from inflation, so what we saw in 2023 (and which is now slowing down as per the first chart) is salaries trying to catch up with the high inflation of 2021/22 (and failing) but the inflation by then was already much lower. Obviously if one completelly ignores the last 5 years (which is a common technique in political propaganda) and just calculates “real” wage growth from present day wages and present day inflation, the result will be positive, simply because salaries are still trying to catch up to the inflation of 2-3 years before. However if one adds up the median real wage growth of the last 4 years, the picture is significantly worse.
Your example is N=1
But inflation is also around 3% so why would you expect a bigger raise?
Are you seriously asking why someone would expect a bigger raise than just keeping up with inflation?
I’m asking why one person’s employment history matters when we can analyze 100 million
No you didn’t ask that, you asked why they would expect a bigger raise when inflation is around 3%. The answer is because they obviously think their job isn’t that terrible.
Your statements about it matter as much as his opinion without sources. Not disagreeing or agreeing, just seeing two opinions and no facts.
This is all about the disconnect between feelings and actual data. The question is how to get them back in sync. Some of that is time, but people will feel negatively as long as their media keeps telling them they are worse off.
For me it’s time. I know that be all objective measures I’m better off. It’s not just the overall stats but I got decent raises two years in a row. I still get hit with how bad inflation is. But a big part is that I stopped buying stuff for a couple of years. I cut back to really only make necessary purchases. Now that I have a little more available resources, and can make a few discretionary purchases, I’m hit by the last 4-5 years of inflation since I even looked. My comparison point is pre-COVID
But I think you can understand why three years of improvement after four decades of stagnation might not dramatically move peoples’ perception of the economy. Plus, are real wages up for everyone? Is it average real wages? Median? There’s a big difference. It’s entirely possible some people are experiencing much more real wage growth than others.
Edit: apparently a lot of you are confused. You seem to think that if wages are up for some, they must be up for all. That’s not how it works. Not everyone got a raise over the last three years. Some people did, others didn’t. Some people saw their income increase dramatically, some saw their income stay about the same, and some saw their income go down. And that’s true whether the incomes in question are measured in “real” (inflation adjusted) terms or are nominal figures.
Bro, go look up “real wages” before you bring some dumbass questions in here.
Ok, I looked it up. Here’s what I found from investopedia:
Real income is how much money an individual or entity makes after accounting for inflation and is sometimes called real wage when referring to an individual’s income. Individuals often closely track their nominal vs. real income to have the best understanding of their purchasing power.
Now that I have an exact definition, explain how anything I wrote was a “dumbass question.” Frankly, I don’t think I’m the dumbass here…
“Is it average real wages? Median?”
That’s the crux of their question, not what real wages means.
If it’s defined by an individual then how is it calculated across the entire working class for you to say it’s increasing. Median, average? Are we all sharing in that growth or only the top?
Serious question: are they up higher than inflation if you adjust for the last three years?
Yes, that’s what real wages mean, adjusted for inflation
Wage growth now is outpacing inflation, meaning we’re going in the right direction. But if you compare over a few years, many people have fallen behind and have a lot of catching up to do.
My wage has not budged in four fucking years and no wages in Oklahoma have gone up if anything they going down.
My company will not give raises and I get paid more than any other person in my field and it isn’t enough.
They literally offering jobs here at 12 an hour you be lucky to see 15 with bunch bullshit stipulations.
I’m sorry that some states are shitholes, with shitty people trying to make them shittier. I live in one too.
Low taxes, but low benefits to its citizens, so people don’t really want to live there. Poor healthcare, poor education, fewer opportunities for the arts and the things that make life worth livin’. It’s a cycle of poverty and despair, and it’s awful.
When I get money, I’m moving out. But I may never have enough money.
Cool, you’re an outlier. Get out of here with anecdotes and come back with real data.
Come Oklahoma asshole better yet look up jobs here and see what they pay. It isn’t shit. Not outliner go look at fucking jobs and what they pay. All the data you need is right there.
NO ONE IS PAYING A FUCKING LIVING WAGE. Homeless is going up everything is but fucking pay. So full of shit. Show your data and not from propaganda machine that is mainstream media.
Tell me about it. It seems like no one looks at job postings to see what companies are actually hiring at.
If they do it’s selective to their profession, or across highly educated professions. Then they can argue “well, git gud scrub.” Completely ignoring how a gigantic portion of the population is stuck working those shit paying jobs.
Wage data doesn’t come from the mainstream media you dope
Lol
Look, peasants, wages have gone up by slightly less than 1% for reasons having nothing to do with the government, be grateful!
They went down in the 1970s and 1980s, and stagnated in 2000s, the last decade of growth hasn’t been seen since the 1990s
I definitely agree with you about the data, but people’s feelings do matter, that’s why we’re currently experiencing a vibecession.
Why would people’s feelings matter when the economy is actually good? The vibecession is literally a Conservative psyop
The entire stock market is based off investor’s feelings so why shouldn’t that also apply to the rest of the economy when market performance is a primary data point when measuring how the economy is doing?
Why isn’t the stock market down
People’s feelings affect how they act. Those actions, collectively, can have an impact on the economy (recession spending can cause a recession), politics (especially with elections in 6 months), and society in general. As they say, “perception creates reality.”
Why aren’t people saving up for a recession? They are spending at a very healthy level
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He has no incentive to do better. It’s him or Trump and he knows most democrats have bought into fear politics. He has the vote no matter what. I’m personally voting for neither. And please save your time trying to convince me otherwise.
Honestly though, Venusaur is really the worst pokémon, and this move has the smallest pp in the series.
After 40 years of a happy life you find out your whole life has been some sort of twisted Truman show. After 20 years of being on the show you’ve forgotten all about the big red button you push every night before you go to sleep. It has become a habit. The big red button sits next to a green button that says “Venusaur is the best Pokemon”. Each night you must choose one and the big red button gases you and makes you forget the last 30 minutes right before you go to sleep.
On the first day of the 41st year you get a knock on the door. It’s a woman in her 30’s wearing a tight fitting Venusaur t-shirt. She tells you it was her little brother’s and you finally find out after 40 years of a happy life that each time you press the red button you cause the brutal death of a child.
You are devastated, run upstairs and press the green button. Venusaur appears and you disappear from a Solar Beam. The most powerful attack in the history of the franchise.
I wish you’d saved your time announcing it.
Good for you for having a reasonable mind in defiance of the system and the countless, unfortunately brainwashed thralls that continue to support it.
A no-vote is a vote against a tyrannous and oppressive system. Every 4 years is a new “emergency, vote for the lesser of two evils!!!” And every 4 years, we descend more rapidly into authoritarianism.
Do not participate in this system created by slavers. Put your energy elsewhere. Can’t we do better today? Put your energy into better.
Attention is currency. Around the world, we need to stop giving these tyrants attention. Corporations have record profits yet the prices of food keep increasing, wages stay stagnant, mass layoffs are occurring, and the global temperature keeps increasing. They do not care, because they have hoarded all your attention and power, and they use it to make a nee world for them.
Their “governments” that they make you think are actually yours, serve that machine of their safety. You are in the meat grinder, and they consume the meat.
The grinder is perfectly balanced. Every vote for the side you think is benevolent gets balanced by a vote against it. You will NEVER have an impact on change within the system. The best thing any individual can do is STOP. Opt out of the system. Live closer to nature and form new, self-sufficient communities.
A no-vote is just the beginning of opting out. The PEOPLE have the power, not a slaver-created mechanism they call a “government”.
Boy, this is a long way to say “don’t vote”.
Hey, anyone reading this. Consider why randoms on the internet might be telling you not to vote.
Little girl,
You aren’t voting. Go stand in line to cast a paper ballot that you can’t verify is even counted for one of two hand-selected-by-the-elite, who don’t give two schlicks about you or your community, and keep pretending you’re “voting” for something.
TBF even if you don’t agree that the economy is getting better under Biden, that still doesn’t say anything about his fiscal policy. His policies might not have a tangible effect for a decade. He’s not a king, he doesn’t decide who sells what and for how much.
Capitalism is strangling us. Any candidate who doesn’t admit that is unacceptable.
That’s literally their goal. Wealthy elites and corporations want to bury the middle and lower classes.
The working class
What’s your solution?
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My ideal solution really doesnt matter. When you are being strangled, to extend the analogy, you dont really care who gets the guy off you.
If capitalism wants to protect itself, it better stop the strangling.
So you want competent legislation to make strangling illegal via a series of complex regulatory standards and campaign finance reform?
I don’t think that would hurt. I certainly would go further.
The point is that on the path we are currently heading, people will take any alternate system better or not. So if capitalism wants to in its own self-interest, stick around, then it’s going to have to throw the little guy some bones.
When people are desperate enough, they’ll look for any savior.
Okay but what is further?
Like I said, it is wholly irrelevant. Read better please.
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You’re allowed to say it, we will just downvote another brain dead violent revolution argument. History is full of proof on how well that tends to work out for your average citizen.
Lmao, they deleted their comment, so in the end THEY were the one who decided they werent allowed to say whatever they said
History is full of proof on how well that tends to work out for your average citizen.
Didn’t see what the deleted comment said so I’m not going to defend or attack it. But isn’t that exactly how the US came about?
And look where that got us. /s
Jokes aside, the US Independence Movement was an organized restructuring of government into democracy that could have gone by peacefully if the then British Monarchy didn’t try to control them by means of force. The USA didn’t invade the UK and tear down parliament.
No, but stop paying your taxes in America and see where you end up.
No one is stopping you here.
Lol okay, I guess Lemmy is too mainstream for you.
Public demand and competition drove prices down. Since Covid reset prices, and stockholders demand growth, companies will continue to price gouge until customers say it’s enough.
This is just what capitalism looks like.
The problem is where things are getting the most expensive, that being food and housing, the markets are captured. You can’t just say no to having food and housing.
This is where regulation is supposed to step in.
Corporate ownership of housing is a major problem that no legislator seems to be handling. The Feds should start building and selling houses to individuals themselves. I believe that is one way to lower housing costs and increasing private ownership.
Food tracks the general inflation closely, it hasn’t actually gone up faster than the inflation in any meaningful way
Food tracks the general inflation closely
That’s a fine bit of bit circular logic there. The price of food is used in the BLS’s basket of goods for calculating the Consumer Price Index (CPI). So yes, the goods used to track inflation do, in fact, track with inflation.
That said, the US economy (at a macro level) is doing rather well considering that we weathered a global pandemic, we have a war on in Europe involving one of the world’s major oil and gas suppliers and inflation has been stubbornly high. Yet somehow, wages are up and unemployment is at historic lows. Seriously, if the administration could actually do something about the housing situation and prices rising, this election would look a lot more like 2008 than 2016. But unfortunately, people vote based on how they feel, not on an analysis of macro-economics. So long as people fell like the gains they have made are being squeezed back out of them via rising prices, the incumbent president is in trouble. When you get down to it, it’s still the economy, stupid.
https://www.bls.gov/news.release/cpi.nr0.htm
It’s not like we don’t have inflation excluding food
All items excluding food and energy: 3.8%
Food: 2.2%
Public demand and competition drove prices down.
Prices have never gone down.
Costs for the corporations may have, but that has never (and will never) been passed on to customers.
It’s not hard to find examples of products where prices have gone down. Prices for literally all electronic goods have been decreasing for a long time, for example.
The way that we measure the economy is disconnected from the quality of life of most residents.
The economy is “good” when the rich are getting richer.
360º turn, got it!
Absolute shit to shit is some sort of change.
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Neoliberalized Democrats wouldn’t say better. This why people doesn’t trust and believe in them anymore. They became neolib like every others and they are chasing the myth of the middle voter.
One result is abstention. The second is people voting for the far right.
“Don’t vote”
lol. No.
LOL, keep trying Vlad.
