Lying and Propagandizing worked very, very well for Manchurian Candidate Barack Hussein Obama and Hillary Clinton. They were emboldened to continue to lie to the idiots that believe in them.
Posted on 11/20/2023 8:35:44 AM PST by SeekAndFind
WASHINGTON (AP) — Inflation has reached its lowest point in 2 1/2 years. The unemployment rate has stayed below 4% for the longest stretch since the 1960s. And the U.S. economy has repeatedly defied predictions of a coming recession. Yet according to a raft of polls and surveys, most Americans hold a glum view of the economy.
The disparity has led to befuddlement, exasperation and curiosity on social media and in opinion columns.
Last week, the government reported that consumer prices didn't rise at all from September to October, the latest sign that inflation is steadily cooling from the heights of last year. A separate report showed that while Americans slowed their retail purchases in October from the previous month’s brisk pace, they’re still spending enough to drive economic growth.
Even so, according to a poll last month by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research, about three-quarters of respondents described the economy as poor. Two-thirds said their expenses have risen. Only one-quarter said their income has.
The disconnect poses a political challenge for President Joe Biden as he gears up for his re-election campaign. Polls consistently show that most Americans disapprove of Biden's handling of the economy.
Many factors lie behind the disconnect, but economists increasingly point to one in particular: The lingering financial and psychological effects of the worst bout of inflation in four decades. Despite the steady cooling of inflation over the past year, many goods and services are still far pricier than they were just three years ago. Inflation — the rate at which costs are increasing — is slowing. But most prices are high and still rising.
Lisa Cook, a member of the Federal Reserve's Board of Governors, captured this dynamic in recent remarks at Duke University.
“Most Americans," Cook said, "are not just looking for disinflation” — a slowdown in price increases. “They’re looking for deflation. They want these prices to be back where they were before the pandemic. ... I hear that from my family.”
That's particularly true for some of the goods and services that Americans pay for most frequently: Bread, beef and other groceries, apartment rents and utilities. Every week or month, consumers are reminded of how far those prices have risen.
Deflation — a widespread drop in prices — typically makes people and companies reluctant to spend and therefore isn't desirable. Instead, economists say, the goal is for wages to rise faster than prices so that consumers still come out ahead.
How inflation-adjusted incomes have fared since the pandemic is a complicated question, because it's difficult for just one metric to capture the experiences of roughly 160 million Americans.
Adjusted for inflation, median weekly earnings — those in the middle of the income distribution — have risen at just a 0.2% annual rate from the final three months of 2019 through the second quarter of this year, according to calculations by Wendy Edelberg, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. That meager gain has left many Americans feeling that they have made little financial progress.
For Katherine Charles, a 40-year old single mother in Tampa, Florida, inflation's slowdown hasn't made it easier to make ends meet. Her rent jumped 15% in May. Over the summer, to keep her electricity bill down, Charles kept the air conditioning off during the day despite Tampa's blistering hot weather .
She has felt the need to cut back on groceries, even though, she said, her 16-year old son and 10-year old daughter “are at the age they are eating everything in front of them."
“My son loves red meat," Charles said. “We cannot any longer afford it the way we used to. The economy's not getting better for nobody, especially not for me.”
Charles, a call center representative with a company that handles customer service for the Medicare and Affordable Care Act health plans, received a raise to $18.21 an hour two years ago. But it wasn't much of an increase. She doesn't even remember how large it was.
This month, Charles took part in a one-day strike against her employer, Maximus. She and her co-workers are seeking higher wages and more affordable health insurance. Charles' two children are on Medicaid, she said, because Maximus' health insurance is too expensive.
Eileen Cassidy Rivera, a spokeswoman for Maximus, said that a recent survey of its 40,000 employees found that three-quarters of those who responded said “they would recommend Maximus as a great place to work.”
“During the past five years, we have increased compensation, reduced out-of-pocket health care expenses and improved the work environment,” Rivera added.
Rising prices have been a key driver of a wave of strikes and other forms of labor activism this year, with unions representing autoworkers, Teamsters and airline pilots winning sizable pay increases.
Other factors also play a role in why many people are still unhappy with the economy. Political partisanship is one of them. With Biden occupying the White House, Republicans are far more likely than Democrats to characterize the economy as poor, according to the University of Michigan's monthly survey of consumer sentiment.
Karen Dynan, a Harvard economist who served in both the George W. Bush and Obama administrations, noted that distinct swings in economic sentiment occur after a new president is inaugurated, with voters from the party opposed to the president quickly switching to a more negative view.
“The partisan divide is stronger than it was before,” she said. “Partly because the country is more polarized.”
Even so, many Americans, like Charles, are still feeling the pain of inflation. The national average price of a gallon of milk reached $3.93 in October, up 23% since February 2020, just before the pandemic struck. A pound of ground beef, at $5.35, is 33% higher than it was then. Average gas prices, despite a steep decline from a year ago, are still 53% higher at $3.78 a gallon, on average.
All those increases have far outpaced the rise in overall prices, which are up nearly 19% over the same period.
Edelberg said the jump in prices for items that people typically buy most often helps explain why many people are disgruntled about the economy — even as Americans have remained confident enough to keep spending at a healthy pace.
“Their purchasing power overall,” Edelberg said, "is doing pretty well.”
Yet broad national data doesn't capture the experiences of everyday Americans, many of whom haven't seen their wages keep up with prices.
“In real terms, most people are probably pretty close to where they were pre-pandemic," said Brad Hershbein, a senior economist at the Upjohn Institute. "But there are a lot of exceptions.”
Lower-income Americans, for example, have generally received the largest percentage wage gains since the pandemic. Fierce competition for front-line workers at restaurants, hotels, retailers and entertainment venues forced companies to provide significant pay hikes.
But poorer people typically face a higher inflation rate, according to economic research, because they spend a greater proportion of their income on such volatile expenses as food, gas and rent — items that have absorbed some of the biggest price spikes.
“At the lower end of the income distribution, people got somewhat higher pay raises,” said Anthony Murphy, a senior economic policy advisor at the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas. “But I don’t think it compensates them for the fact that inflation was so much higher. They’re consuming a different bundle of goods than the average.”
Census Bureau surveys that Murphy and his colleague Aparna Jayashankar have studied show that nearly half of Americans say they're “very stressed” by inflation, little changed from a year earlier, even though inflation has tumbled since last year.
Even for people whose incomes have kept pace with prices, research has long found that people hate inflation more intently than its economic impact would suggest. Most people do not expect their pay to keep up with rising prices. Even if it does, the higher pay may come with a time lag.
“They’re obsessing over the fact that the prices they pay for the things that are very salient — gas, food, grocery store prices, rent — those things still seem elevated, even though they’re not increasing as rapidly as they were,” Hershbein said.
Everything is great, you’re just not smart enough to see it. Ignore the $5 price tag on a bag of frozen peas that was 99¢ just a few years ago. Shut up and pay $8+/lb for hamburger and $25+/lb for ribeyes. Don’t forget, fasting is good for you! If gas is too expensive, take the bus! Don’t like your house so cold, put on a sweater! Mortgage rates too high? You don’t need to own a house. In fact, you don’t need to own anything. Just accept it, you are happy. Everything is great.
What is it with them measuring inflation on such a short time scale? 2 years? What a joke! How about we’re at the highest inflation in the last five? Ten? Since I was just out of high school in 2008?
Then it’s not so freakin’ peachy.
Not long ago turkey was 30 to 40 cents a pound. This year it is 70 to 100 cents a pound. Start with that is you want to know why consumers are gloomy. My wife just keeps cutting back in an effort to control costs. Almost everything she buys now in groceries is house brand. Commodities, sugar is upmore than double, copper up 50 since pre covid.
Silly sophistry.
So the economy is getting worse more slowly than it was a year ago. Got it.
If gas and diesel prices go down the price of everything else will go down.
Have you priced dog food lately? Prices have doubled to keep our four dogs fed with decent quality dog food.
“Only one-quarter said their income has (increased).”
Must be those 40 year olds that finally got kicked out of their parents’ basement and HAD to go back to work after nearly four years of living off unemployment and the largess of ‘We The People.’
“...gas, food, grocery store prices, rent — those things still seem elevated, even though they’re not increasing as rapidly as they were...”
HOWEVER, THEY’RE STILL INCREASING! Yeesh!
Falling inflation? Anyone been to the store this week to pick up some Thanksgiving food? DC’s goons and thugs mean ‘the rate’ not ‘the prices’... Effing democrat liars.
So if last year’s inflation rate was 15% and now it’s 10%, these azzholes run around claiming inflation is DOWN by 5%.
Only in today’s DEM-run media.
This reminds me of Senator Paul’s discussion of “gain of function” research.
Apparently if you create a virus that killed less people than yesterday’s new virus according to Fauci and the CDC you are not “gaining function” you are losing it.
Lol.
Their economic numbers are fake and everyone knows it. The economic indicators that the little people pay attention to are their paychecks, their rent/mortgage, bills, and grocery prices. And those are not doing well at all.
Peddle those lies!
They are traitors, pure and simple
A good friend of mine was on a rant about his niece a few days ago. She and her boyfriend live in Georgia and she just had a child, they're in their late 20's. Before she had the child she was working a call center job for about $40K a year. Her boyfriend is an electrician making about $100K a year. Two years ago they bought a $300K house with some kind of government guaranteed loan, they're obviously not married and they have no plans to get married because they'd lose a lot of government freebies. She and the child are on Peachcare which is one of Georgia's medicaid programs. She's been bragging about how it's paid everything for the birth of the kid, plus she gets all the baby's food/formula etc. paid for. She gets food stamps, child care even though she doesn't work, plus a laundry list of other freebies that I can't remember. She hasn't returned to work and likely won't because she gets to sit around the house and smoke pot all day long now that she's on the government dole. The boyfriend starts sipping beer as soon as he pulls out of work for the drive home, then gets into the pot when he walks in the door. Great environment for the child to grow up in, huh?
It doesn't take much imagination to figure out which party they'll be voting for.
Inflation is not falling and we better get ready for another round of it.
Everyone I know is bitching about the economy and the border, both of which the Demonrats think are successful at.
Delusional
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