5 ms·

It’s all about the economy (remember, ‘it’s the economy, stupid’). We keep hearing statistics showing that the economy is doing well, but I have yet to meet an

by tlogan 2y ago

It’s all about the economy (remember, ‘it’s the economy, stupid’). We keep hearing statistics showing that the economy is doing well, but I have yet to meet anyone who feels like they’re actually better off. I’m not saying that the stats are wrong, but when it comes to politics, you can’t address economic anxiety by just pointing to statistics and saying, ‘Look, the numbers say everything is fine.’

tootie 2y ago
Polling clearly indicates that the percentage of Americans who feel financially secure has been steady for years while the percentage who think the economy is in poor shape is increasing rapidly. It is 99% perception. People who are better off just won't say it when they think everyone else is struggling. The bull market in stocks and rising home values indicates anyone who owns any assets is doing very very well.
- brink 2y ago
  Posts on HN about tech workers struggling to find jobs and mass layoffs reaches the front page every week. Half my tech friends are laid off right now. That was not the case four years ago. Everyone I knew had a job, everyone had money.
  - tootie 2y ago
    That's perception. In reality layoffs happen all the time even in a growing labor market. I saw tech layoffs in my network up to maybe a year ago and almost everyone is employed again. We had a correction after what was the most overheated job market ever.
  - Uncouple4063 2y ago
    > half my friends Yes, this is > 99% perception
  - ThrowawayR2 2y ago
    Uncertainty about how erratic US domestic and foreign policy is going to become as a result of the election is probably going to drop spending on US products globally, including software and high tech. If HNers were unhappy about tech layoffs now, well, IMO the public just voted for someone likely to cause even more of them.
    - brink 2y ago
      We'll see. However, that tactic of fear mongering and emotional manipulation only works for so long. You can only tell the American public the world is going to end so many times before they stop believing you.
- squigz 2y ago
  Can you link to some of that polling, please?
slothtrop 2y ago
What motivated people according to polls was firstly inflation, then a distant second was either abortion or illegal border crossings. You're pretty much correct. It's been pointed out this quarter that inflation has been abated and wage growth has improved, but notwithstanding that people continue to feel worse off financially, they remain resentful. The DNC made some blunders. Leaving aside covid spending, they screwed up reverting Trump's border policy and waited too long to fix it. Harris was weak on messaging and came up with the Housing plan too late, didn't champion the CHIPS act enough. Also, the newscycle was constantly showing the US spending large sums both domestically and abroad which had an impact on inflation. And of course there's all the other culture-war/DEI stuff that isn't strictly within the purview of the feds but feeds into resentment.
cbsks 2y ago
> I have yet to meet anyone who feels like they’re actually better off. Hi! I’m doing better than ever before. It’s hard to attribute that to a political cause, however. I expect to be doing even better in 4 years, regardless of who’s in office.
- llm_trw 2y ago
  I'm doing great. That doesn't mean I don't notice my grocery bill is three times what it was in 2019 after being pretty much the same from 2009 till then. It's kind of annoying having people tell me this doesn't impact me. I'm literally spending more money for the same thing and my salary hasn't tripled in the last 5 years - my shares though. Which is kind of the point.
  - mikehearn 2y ago
    To me, this is at the heart of why Trump won this election. I honestly do not believe your grocery bill has tripled. That's 200% inflation, which is an insane number. The statistics we have are that groceries have gone up ~25%. I have such a hard time imagining any combination of products that would add up to 8x the national inflation average of groceries. But, I also don't think you're lying. I think you honestly believe your grocery bill tripled, and I think a lot of people have a similar internal impression about how bad inflation got. It's not useful for me (or, for politicians) to try and argue it logically. No one can check your receipts from 2019 and 2024 and say, look, things aren't actually that bad. Dems needed to kind of take it at face value and come up with a solution to something that people feel is real, and they just did not do that. Editing to add: I might as well add the lowest effort source to the ~25% number, which comes from using the search feature of ChatGPT (sorry). https://chatgpt.com/share/672b7e09-4b58-800e-a3df-58f38c33bc13 https://chatgpt.com/share/672b7e09-4b58-800e-a3df-58f38c33bc...
    - JansjoFromIkea 2y ago
      What is the 25% figure coming from? Not disputing it, just curious. Unable to give US equivalents but I think the price increases were pretty significant on the lower end and less so the higher you go up. Until a few years ago it was possible to get instant ramen noodles for ~15p, you could get 6 eggs for like 80p, baked beans for 20p, etc. All of these things and similar spiked massively very very quickly. There was also a kind of double inflation where a lot of the value offerings seemed to disappear from shelves for an extended period (e.g. I remember a patch of several months where those instant ramen noodles weren't stocked in any supermarket near me at all while the 90p branded version was). They've actually gone back down somewhat since but what you're looking at is people barely scraping by seeing drastic increases in their grocery bills. Similar issues occurred with energy costs in the last few years; along with the rates going up the companies drastically bumped up the standing charge so even if you almost cut out all usage entirely you still could wind up seeing an increase.
from-nibly 2y ago
look, whatever the charts say is a 100% bold faced lie. have you seen the price of a little ceasars pizza? it's jumped nearly 50% in the last 4 years. my salary has not gone up 50% relative to my experiece in the last 4 years. most recently i got a salary cut. you can't make me believe the economy is doing fine.
- slothtrop 2y ago
  I mean, there's more than one dimension to "the economy". Unemployment rate and GDP recovery is good, inflation curtailed, wages are growing - but obviously not enough. Then Harris proposed a decent policy to improve housing affordability, but that would only beg the question "why didn't Biden do this?". Basically, too little too late. They fucked up that, and fucked up on the border, when there was no excuse to fuck up. I believe the Harris' policies would have been better for the economy than tariffs and deportations, but it's a moot point in voters' minds.
  - pc86 2y ago
    Your first paragraph should be printed, framed, and put in a museum as a perfect example of why the Biden-Harris messaging around the economy fell flat. Nobody gives a shit if unemployment is down and GDP is up when a pizza that was $10 3 years ago is $15 now. The answer to someone saying that they can't afford as much as they could a few years ago is not to tell them that they're wrong. Her housing credit suggestion a) was less than the amount the median home price increased by under Biden, and b) would have only served to increase the price of housing further by increasing the supply of money available, exactly the same thing ZIRP did.
    - slothtrop 2y ago
      I'm not referring to the credit. She had proposals to boost supply. Tax incentives for builders that build starter homes sold to first-time buyers An expansion of a tax incentive for building affordable rental housing. A new $40 billion innovation fund to spur innovative housing construction. To repurpose some federal land for affordable housing. To remove tax benefits for investors who buy large numbers of single-family rental homes. as per - https://www.noahpinion.blog/p/harris-has-the-right-idea-on-housing https://www.noahpinion.blog/p/harris-has-the-right-idea-on-h...
slibhb 2y ago
> I’m not saying that the stats are wrong, but when it comes to politics, you can’t address economic anxiety by just pointing to statistics and saying, ‘Look, the numbers say everything is fine.’ So improving the economy can't address economic anxiety? That's a pretty grim picture of human nature. For what it's worth, I feel better off than 4 years ago. My investments are up ~20%, which is a lot considered it's all diversified funds.
- weberer 2y ago
  The Cumulative inflation rate since 2020 is 21.8%. https://www.usinflationcalculator.com/ https://www.usinflationcalculator.com/
- pc86 2y ago
  SPY is up 70% in the last 4 years.
- Jcampuzano2 2y ago
  I think people fail to understand is that a large portion of the population has literally 0 investments, let alone diversified portolios that are technically up. These people give absolutely 0 shits about the stock market being up and the economy being considered fine. We on HN are sheltered and generally have decent jobs which do allow us to have investments and thus don't see the impact as much as those who don't see the bullish line of the stockmarket driving their portfolios up.
- rtkwe 2y ago
  Only ~61% of Americans have any stock holdings and most of those are pretty minor and/or locked up long term in retirement vehicles like a 401k. For practical purposes that money doesn't exist for people which is why a well performing stock market is a crappy indicator for how people will actually feel about the economy. My 401k is up 30% YoY but I can't feel that because the money is locked up for another 30-35 years and I can't access it via the stock market because of my job. A much better view IMO would be median real wage growth vs inflation because that's how people mostly interact with the economy, simple day to day purchases of food, shelter, and fuel/power.
- 2y ago
greggroth 2y ago
The frustrating thing is that the economy lags policy, and policy has limited influence on the economy to begin with. Inflation rose because the US consumer was ready to spend much faster than the supply chain could recover from the COVID era. The Inflation Reduction Act could only do so much to soften inflation, but the whole thing was blamed on Biden by the average voter.
alibarber 2y ago
I live in Finland which is a pretty 'expensive' country, I come from the UK which is less so but not really cheap. I live/lived in the capitals of both countries pretty much exclusively. I visited the States in 2019 (Boston), and then didn't until last week (NYC). The level of inflation in the US for everyday things between that time seemed insanely high compared to anything I'd seen in Europe. How anyone couldn't look at the price of rent and food and whatever and think "5 years ago I was paying a lot less" and have that not feed massively into their decision making process at the (private) ballot box is beyond me.
- SV_BubbleTime 2y ago
  Now have a party telling you things were fine, and that at the same time they would fix them, while ignoring they were the party that was in power. Add in a terrible candidate who nervous laughed nonstop, did almost nothing but attack the other side, and here we are.
  - darknavi 2y ago
    > Add in a terrible candidate who nervous laughed nonstop, did almost nothing but attack the other side, and here we are. I can't tell which person you're talking about.
    - tartuffe78 2y ago
      Trump doesn’t really laugh much, it’s a bit odd when you noticed it.
      - SV_BubbleTime 2y ago
        You have no idea what you’re talking about. Watch the Joe Rogan Trump interview. He laughs plenty. You were mistaken stage-Trump for the person-Trump. Stage Trump is a certain character, 3 hour interview Trump is the real guy.
  - alibarber 2y ago
mdgrech23 2y ago
honestly feel like we're actively being lied to about how "good" the economy is.
- SV_BubbleTime 2y ago
  Turns out a majority of Americans agree with you.

by tlogan 2y ago

tootie 2y ago

Polling clearly indicates that the percentage of Americans who feel financially secure has been steady for years while the percentage who think the economy is in poor shape is increasing rapidly. It is 99% perception. People who are better off just won't say it when they think everyone else is struggling. The bull market in stocks and rising home values indicates anyone who owns any assets is doing very very well.

brink 2y ago
Posts on HN about tech workers struggling to find jobs and mass layoffs reaches the front page every week. Half my tech friends are laid off right now. That was not the case four years ago. Everyone I knew had a job, everyone had money.
- tootie 2y ago
  That's perception. In reality layoffs happen all the time even in a growing labor market. I saw tech layoffs in my network up to maybe a year ago and almost everyone is employed again. We had a correction after what was the most overheated job market ever.
- Uncouple4063 2y ago
  > half my friends Yes, this is > 99% perception
- ThrowawayR2 2y ago
  Uncertainty about how erratic US domestic and foreign policy is going to become as a result of the election is probably going to drop spending on US products globally, including software and high tech. If HNers were unhappy about tech layoffs now, well, IMO the public just voted for someone likely to cause even more of them.
  - brink 2y ago
    We'll see. However, that tactic of fear mongering and emotional manipulation only works for so long. You can only tell the American public the world is going to end so many times before they stop believing you.
squigz 2y ago
Can you link to some of that polling, please?

slothtrop 2y ago

What motivated people according to polls was firstly inflation, then a distant second was either abortion or illegal border crossings. You're pretty much correct. It's been pointed out this quarter that inflation has been abated and wage growth has improved, but notwithstanding that people continue to feel worse off financially, they remain resentful. The DNC made some blunders. Leaving aside covid spending, they screwed up reverting Trump's border policy and waited too long to fix it. Harris was weak on messaging and came up with the Housing plan too late, didn't champion the CHIPS act enough. Also, the newscycle was constantly showing the US spending large sums both domestically and abroad which had an impact on inflation. And of course there's all the other culture-war/DEI stuff that isn't strictly within the purview of the feds but feeds into resentment.

cbsks 2y ago

> I have yet to meet anyone who feels like they’re actually better off. Hi! I’m doing better than ever before. It’s hard to attribute that to a political cause, however. I expect to be doing even better in 4 years, regardless of who’s in office.

llm_trw 2y ago
I'm doing great. That doesn't mean I don't notice my grocery bill is three times what it was in 2019 after being pretty much the same from 2009 till then. It's kind of annoying having people tell me this doesn't impact me. I'm literally spending more money for the same thing and my salary hasn't tripled in the last 5 years - my shares though. Which is kind of the point.
- mikehearn 2y ago
  To me, this is at the heart of why Trump won this election. I honestly do not believe your grocery bill has tripled. That's 200% inflation, which is an insane number. The statistics we have are that groceries have gone up ~25%. I have such a hard time imagining any combination of products that would add up to 8x the national inflation average of groceries. But, I also don't think you're lying. I think you honestly believe your grocery bill tripled, and I think a lot of people have a similar internal impression about how bad inflation got. It's not useful for me (or, for politicians) to try and argue it logically. No one can check your receipts from 2019 and 2024 and say, look, things aren't actually that bad. Dems needed to kind of take it at face value and come up with a solution to something that people feel is real, and they just did not do that. Editing to add: I might as well add the lowest effort source to the ~25% number, which comes from using the search feature of ChatGPT (sorry). https://chatgpt.com/share/672b7e09-4b58-800e-a3df-58f38c33bc13 https://chatgpt.com/share/672b7e09-4b58-800e-a3df-58f38c33bc...
  - JansjoFromIkea 2y ago
    What is the 25% figure coming from? Not disputing it, just curious. Unable to give US equivalents but I think the price increases were pretty significant on the lower end and less so the higher you go up. Until a few years ago it was possible to get instant ramen noodles for ~15p, you could get 6 eggs for like 80p, baked beans for 20p, etc. All of these things and similar spiked massively very very quickly. There was also a kind of double inflation where a lot of the value offerings seemed to disappear from shelves for an extended period (e.g. I remember a patch of several months where those instant ramen noodles weren't stocked in any supermarket near me at all while the 90p branded version was). They've actually gone back down somewhat since but what you're looking at is people barely scraping by seeing drastic increases in their grocery bills. Similar issues occurred with energy costs in the last few years; along with the rates going up the companies drastically bumped up the standing charge so even if you almost cut out all usage entirely you still could wind up seeing an increase.

from-nibly 2y ago

look, whatever the charts say is a 100% bold faced lie. have you seen the price of a little ceasars pizza? it's jumped nearly 50% in the last 4 years. my salary has not gone up 50% relative to my experiece in the last 4 years. most recently i got a salary cut. you can't make me believe the economy is doing fine.

slothtrop 2y ago
I mean, there's more than one dimension to "the economy". Unemployment rate and GDP recovery is good, inflation curtailed, wages are growing - but obviously not enough. Then Harris proposed a decent policy to improve housing affordability, but that would only beg the question "why didn't Biden do this?". Basically, too little too late. They fucked up that, and fucked up on the border, when there was no excuse to fuck up. I believe the Harris' policies would have been better for the economy than tariffs and deportations, but it's a moot point in voters' minds.
- pc86 2y ago
  Your first paragraph should be printed, framed, and put in a museum as a perfect example of why the Biden-Harris messaging around the economy fell flat. Nobody gives a shit if unemployment is down and GDP is up when a pizza that was $10 3 years ago is $15 now. The answer to someone saying that they can't afford as much as they could a few years ago is not to tell them that they're wrong. Her housing credit suggestion a) was less than the amount the median home price increased by under Biden, and b) would have only served to increase the price of housing further by increasing the supply of money available, exactly the same thing ZIRP did.
  - slothtrop 2y ago
    I'm not referring to the credit. She had proposals to boost supply. Tax incentives for builders that build starter homes sold to first-time buyers An expansion of a tax incentive for building affordable rental housing. A new $40 billion innovation fund to spur innovative housing construction. To repurpose some federal land for affordable housing. To remove tax benefits for investors who buy large numbers of single-family rental homes. as per - https://www.noahpinion.blog/p/harris-has-the-right-idea-on-housing https://www.noahpinion.blog/p/harris-has-the-right-idea-on-h...

slibhb 2y ago

> I’m not saying that the stats are wrong, but when it comes to politics, you can’t address economic anxiety by just pointing to statistics and saying, ‘Look, the numbers say everything is fine.’ So improving the economy can't address economic anxiety? That's a pretty grim picture of human nature. For what it's worth, I feel better off than 4 years ago. My investments are up ~20%, which is a lot considered it's all diversified funds.

weberer 2y ago
The Cumulative inflation rate since 2020 is 21.8%. https://www.usinflationcalculator.com/ https://www.usinflationcalculator.com/
pc86 2y ago
SPY is up 70% in the last 4 years.
Jcampuzano2 2y ago
I think people fail to understand is that a large portion of the population has literally 0 investments, let alone diversified portolios that are technically up. These people give absolutely 0 shits about the stock market being up and the economy being considered fine. We on HN are sheltered and generally have decent jobs which do allow us to have investments and thus don't see the impact as much as those who don't see the bullish line of the stockmarket driving their portfolios up.
rtkwe 2y ago
Only ~61% of Americans have any stock holdings and most of those are pretty minor and/or locked up long term in retirement vehicles like a 401k. For practical purposes that money doesn't exist for people which is why a well performing stock market is a crappy indicator for how people will actually feel about the economy. My 401k is up 30% YoY but I can't feel that because the money is locked up for another 30-35 years and I can't access it via the stock market because of my job. A much better view IMO would be median real wage growth vs inflation because that's how people mostly interact with the economy, simple day to day purchases of food, shelter, and fuel/power.
2y ago

greggroth 2y ago

The frustrating thing is that the economy lags policy, and policy has limited influence on the economy to begin with. Inflation rose because the US consumer was ready to spend much faster than the supply chain could recover from the COVID era. The Inflation Reduction Act could only do so much to soften inflation, but the whole thing was blamed on Biden by the average voter.

alibarber 2y ago

I live in Finland which is a pretty 'expensive' country, I come from the UK which is less so but not really cheap. I live/lived in the capitals of both countries pretty much exclusively. I visited the States in 2019 (Boston), and then didn't until last week (NYC). The level of inflation in the US for everyday things between that time seemed insanely high compared to anything I'd seen in Europe. How anyone couldn't look at the price of rent and food and whatever and think "5 years ago I was paying a lot less" and have that not feed massively into their decision making process at the (private) ballot box is beyond me.

SV_BubbleTime 2y ago
Now have a party telling you things were fine, and that at the same time they would fix them, while ignoring they were the party that was in power. Add in a terrible candidate who nervous laughed nonstop, did almost nothing but attack the other side, and here we are.
- darknavi 2y ago
  > Add in a terrible candidate who nervous laughed nonstop, did almost nothing but attack the other side, and here we are. I can't tell which person you're talking about.
  - tartuffe78 2y ago
    Trump doesn’t really laugh much, it’s a bit odd when you noticed it.
    - SV_BubbleTime 2y ago
      You have no idea what you’re talking about. Watch the Joe Rogan Trump interview. He laughs plenty. You were mistaken stage-Trump for the person-Trump. Stage Trump is a certain character, 3 hour interview Trump is the real guy.
- alibarber 2y ago

mdgrech23 2y ago

honestly feel like we're actively being lied to about how "good" the economy is.

SV_BubbleTime 2y ago
Turns out a majority of Americans agree with you.