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I feel like Americans perceptions of the economy are accurate. It comes across as very disingenuous to state that how people are feeling aren’t aligned with the

• Retric 2y ago
  Americans have noticed how little the overall economy correlates with their lives. That doesn’t mean they are making accurate statements about the economy, but rather that the economy isn’t something that matters to them. Many things are done that are hypothetically good for the economy, and bad for most Americans. That’s objectively true but runs into ideological issues and the pocketbooks of those who do benefit. On the flip side you have things that are bad for the economy and benefit millions of Americans like farm subsidies which are rarely attacked on economic grounds. It’s used more as a political talking point than an actual rational stance.
  • happytoexplain 2y ago
    Yes, but this starts to get into semantics. If a person complains about the economy (as in the relative-to-the-past QoL of common citizens), and an economist says the economy is great, they're talking past each other by using the word economy differently (colloquial vs formal).
    • scarmig 2y ago
      In this situation, though, it's economists who are using an out-of-the-norm term and upset when people don't immediately abandon existing usages. Economy literally means "home management," after all. That confusion is born of ideology: there's an abstraction, which economists think should capture the usual meaning in a more rigorous way, and when it doesn't, it's upsetting. So it's the people who must be wrong.
      • PaulDavisThe1st 2y ago
        The primary definition of the word "economy" in the Oxford is: > the wealth and resources of a country or region, especially in terms of the production and consumption of goods and services. so, yes, it does have other meanings too, but it does not "literally mean home management".
      • Retric 2y ago
        The sense of "wealth and resources of a country" (short for political economy) is attested from 1650s That’s long before economists became a thing. Kings looked about the economy in terms of tax revenue, so it’s not just some arbitrary abstraction.
      • dragonwriter 2y ago
        > Economy literally means "home management," No, it doesn't. "Etymologically derives from an older term that meant" is not the same as "literally means", though for some reason the confusion of etymology and meaning is common on HN.
        • scarmig 2y ago
          You're wrong, here. Words are defined by how people use them, and the way people actually use the term "economy" is much closer to the original etymological meaning than how economists use it. Economists are free to take a term and redefine it for their own purposes, but the public meaning is every bit as valid. They don't have a trump card that invalidates every other meaning because they want to use it to designate a particular abstraction.
          • Retric 2y ago
            There’s two definitions of the same word both of which predate economics, but the slightly older one mostly died out. “Home economics” was used in the 1950’s to distinguish it from the more common use of the term back then, while economics classes don’t need that clarification. Today few people are aware of the older definition.
  • pylua 2y ago
    I don’t think it’s that. I think it’s the coarse, high level statistics provided by the article aren’t in line with what the majority of Americans are experiencing. For instance, crime may be decreasing, but it could be increasing where there are more people, meaning more people think crime is increasing. I’m not sure if that is true or not, but I feel like it is with perceptions of the economy.
    • Retric 2y ago
      Crimes way down in populated areas. EX: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crime_in_New_York_City#/media/File:New_York_Murders_Annually_-_1928-2023.svg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crime_in_New_York_City#/media/... Note that’s absolute numbers not rates. I know people who have noticed the massive reduction in crime inside cities, and still think it’s up overall. Part of the issue is news stories harp on bad news when rates are slightly higher than last year, but not when they drop so random noise ends up looking like a steady increase.
      • pylua 2y ago
        I don’t understand the crime one personally. Just a guess: 1) people who migrate to larger cities are exposed to more crime 2) not many people from the 1950s around that can really compare accurately
        • Retric 2y ago
          NYC crime only really fell in the 90’s, that’s in living memory for a large chunk of the population and there where noticeable improvements up until COVID. Though you could be right with how many young people moved to cities after things improved.
        • phil21 2y ago
          In my city I could very much believe overall crime is down, but due to recent social events crime is far more spread out. Areas that used to experience very little crime are now seeing far more. Areas that saw crazy levels of crime leveled off some. Crimes that were basically unheard of in my neighborhood 5 years ago (carjackings and armed muggings, for example) are now a weekly common occurrence. This will absolutely create the impression for residents in my neighborhood that crime is up. It went from something you barely thought about, to something you now plan your night around to not be walking home alone in the dark. Reporting is also a problem. I know of two people who were violently mugged to the point of one being hospitalized who did not report it to the police since they knew it was utterly pointless to do so.
  • SirMaster 2y ago
    I think it's just a terminology or definition problem then. I think when the average person talks about if the economy is doing good or bad they are mostly thinking about their own wallet and what they can buy etc and how much things cost compared to previously. If things keep getting more expensive and they don't feel like they can afford as much as before, they might think that the economy must be doing bad if all these companies need to raise their prices so much just to survive or make a profit. I think most people would associate things being cheap and plentiful as a good economy, and things being expensive and hard to get (out of stock, long lead times, etc) as a bad economy.
    • deleted 2y ago
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• tonyedgecombe 2y ago
  > I feel like Americans perceptions of the economy are accurate. I think most of the rest of the world would disagree.
  • pylua 2y ago
    How so?
    • tonyedgecombe 2y ago
      They think Americans are a bunch of cry babies because they think they are poor when it is obvious that even the poorest among them are wealthier than the majority of the people outside America.
• hedora 2y ago
  The simpler explanation is that the (well documented) right wing propaganda outlets in the US convinced people that the economy was bad. The poll asked people for their personal experiences at the micro level, and the respondents said things were great. The macro statistics were also great. The only negative was people’s perception of the economy.
  • djohnston 2y ago
    Also the cost of food, the impossibility of affording a home, etc. Not really just "perception" is it?
  • readthenotes1 2y ago
    Or perhaps the well-documented left wing propaganda outlets have you convinced that the economy is good for everyone?
  • aliasxneo 2y ago
    Ironic to bring in partisan politics when the article was explicitly talking about how deluded things become when you go down that path.
  • pylua 2y ago
    Peoples financial situation has increased overall, just like mine has. Even though it’s increased and I’m content with the increase I also see that there is less opportunity than there was a few years ago.
    • WarOnPrivacy 2y ago
      > Peoples financial situation has increased overall, Some people's. Since 2020 our housing doubled. So did our auto insurance. We're housed because my children became adults and added 3 incomes to the household. With 4 typical incomes we make basic bills + afford knock-on expenses like repair and medical bills. We also make just enough money to pay less for many expenses. Something that changed all over: Couples generally can't afford living expenses on 2 typical wages.
  • 2y ago
• PaulDavisThe1st 2y ago
  If GDP keeps increasing, but the percentage of GDP that flows to labor keeps decreasing, then both of these things are true: * the economy has grown * people are worse off People's feelings about the economy can be both accurate ("we are worse off") and inaccurate ("the economy is worse"). The lesson here is that we need to clear about what the metrics we are using (e.g. GDP or disposable income after housing/health/food/transportation is accounted for) are actually good for. Rising GDP really does indicate a larger and/or more productive economy. But because of the way wealth is distributed and controlled in the US, a larger and/or more productive economy does not have any direct relationship to individual people's economic situation.