COVID Dissonance
What's especially concerning is that public opinion generally tracked economic conditions until COVID and now it is completely decoupled. Thus, most of the explanations that we would default to - partisan media, polarization, etc. - don't work because they predate the divergence by a significant margin. Maybe COVID just broke our brains.
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Last edited Wed Nov 13, 2024, 11:13 AM - Edit history (3)
And does the economic data include inflation? The punditry is constantly hammering on inflation (which started being a big factor in spring 2021 and peaked at 9.0% on a year-over-year basis in mid 2022) as explaining why so many people felt and feel that the economy was/is bad. Even though the inflation rate has come down since then, to 2.4% yoy at the latest, almost down to the Fed's target of 2.0%, the media and punditry keep harping on the cumulative price increase of 20% (19.9% to another decimal place) since January 2021. (And on a few individual items like "oh my god, look at egg prices!!!" sigh).
Edited to add after this morning's October CPI inflation report: The year over year (yoy) is now 2.6%, and the cumulative CPI increase since January 2021 is now 20.2% (still rounds to 20%). /End Edit
And even though average and median incomes have increased more than inflation (by a little bit) since pre-pandemic, people say not in my case (whether true or not, that's usually the perception), or I'm on a fixed income etc.
People have "sticker shock" when prices bump up, but seldom get "paycheck shock" when their paycheck bumps up by the same amount.
"People tend to peg pay increases to their job performance and feel higher prices have devalued raises they worked hard to get" - The Week 11/15/24 p. 14
And finally, they say, and I've seen this on DU recently (a few days before the election), "the inflation data is manipulated" doncha know?
CPI: https://data.bls.gov/timeseries/CUSR0000SA0
CPI month over month: https://data.bls.gov/timeseries/CUSR0000SA0?output_view=pct_1mth
Click on "More Formatting Options" at the upper right and choose 1 month, 3 months, and 12 months to see month-over-month, 3 month running average, and year-over-year numbers.
Oh, BTW the new CPI numbers come out 830 AM ET today, and the Producer Price Index on Thursday.
Edited to add: From this morning's October inflation report, thanks BumRushDaShow and CNBC:
https://www.democraticunderground.com/10143338943
