The Secretly Booming Economy
by Kathy Goodman ‘83
In a recent YouGov/Economist poll among registered voters, 64% said they were satisfied with the way things were going in their life; 80% said they were either a great deal or somewhat satisfied with their current job, and 86% said they thought their family income would either increase or stay the same in 2024. Fifty-six percent of registered voters thought they were paid fairly for their work.
But when asked to describe the US economy as a whole, only 30% of registered voters rated it as excellent or good and 64% rated it as fair or poor.
Why this disconnect between Americans’ satisfaction with their own economic situation and their negative belief about the US economy as a whole? There have been a variety of explanations, but Democratic strategist Simon Rosenberg points to some basic misunderstandings Americans have about the true state of the US economy. He noted that recent polling shows that 62% of Americans think the US economy is either shrinking or staying the same, when the reality is that during Biden's term, the US economy has had the highest growth under any President since Bill Clinton. Fifty-eight percent of Americans believe the number of jobs in the US is either shrinking or staying the same when the reality is that President Biden has presided over the fastest job growth rate since WWII, adding over 14 million new jobs.
We need to share the good economic news in order to drown out pessimistic talk by Republicans of looming recession and inflation. Some facts to tout:
--According to a recent Federal Reserve Report, American families experienced a real median increase of 37% in net worth between 2019 and 2022, the largest jump on record, with gains across the socioeconomic spectrum.
--According to the same report, median family income, after adjusting for inflation, rose 3% between 2018 and 2021.
--The most recent jobs report showed the 34th consecutive month of job growth, an increase in hourly wages of 4.1% over a year ago, and an unemployment rate below 4% for the 20th straight month, a streak not achieved since the 1960’s.
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