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.
It’s very curious to me how the economic indicators can seem so positive while people are still feeling the pangs of increased prices across the board.
There have been various articles/studies shared recently which indicate corporations have been taken advantage of consumers. We’ve heard terms like “greed’flation” to describe it. This article then says Biden alluding to this “is suspicious to many economists.”
Are economic indicators not able to capture “greedflation”? Is it a thing or not? Something I need to do more reading on I suppose.
I don’t think the “indicators” are a useful metric of personal betterment, which is what makes individual people feel better about the economy. Stock market being up, interest rates and inflation going down, productivity up and salaries on the increase are all positive conditions. But if your salary isn’t rising as fast as the combined inflation of the past 4 years and all of your companies profits are feeding dividends and stock buy-backs instead of plant expansion and increasing benefits then it’s a net negative in your bank account at the end of the month. Insurance rates - auto, health, homeowners (esp if you’re coastal) are soaring up, which hits the average pocketbook but probably has no weight in economic indicators. Lord help you if you’re paying tuition or taking out loans for college. It’s more than $4000 per class at a typical state university, if you’re not subsidized by scholarship or the state.
It doesn’t help that the news cycle is (somewhat rightly) pointing out how imbalanced and broken the socioeconomic system is.
It’s very curious to me how the economic indicators can seem so positive while people are still feeling the pangs of increased prices across the board.
There have been various articles/studies shared recently which indicate corporations have been taken advantage of consumers. We’ve heard terms like “greed’flation” to describe it. This article then says Biden alluding to this “is suspicious to many economists.”
Are economic indicators not able to capture “greedflation”? Is it a thing or not? Something I need to do more reading on I suppose.
UPDATE: example article / study
I don’t think the “indicators” are a useful metric of personal betterment, which is what makes individual people feel better about the economy. Stock market being up, interest rates and inflation going down, productivity up and salaries on the increase are all positive conditions. But if your salary isn’t rising as fast as the combined inflation of the past 4 years and all of your companies profits are feeding dividends and stock buy-backs instead of plant expansion and increasing benefits then it’s a net negative in your bank account at the end of the month. Insurance rates - auto, health, homeowners (esp if you’re coastal) are soaring up, which hits the average pocketbook but probably has no weight in economic indicators. Lord help you if you’re paying tuition or taking out loans for college. It’s more than $4000 per class at a typical state university, if you’re not subsidized by scholarship or the state.
It doesn’t help that the news cycle is (somewhat rightly) pointing out how imbalanced and broken the socioeconomic system is.
Exactly this.
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