Credit: RichVintage / Getty
Explaining the state of the American economy at the moment is a conundrum. The labor market is good — as is much of the economy — and people say that everything is terrible.
The past couple of years have been a solid stretch for workers in America. Unemployment is low. People who want to find jobs, by and large, can. Wages are up — even accounting for inflation over the past several months, and especially for people at the lower ends of the income spectrum. Workers really have been able to flex their muscles, whether that means quitting their jobs or unionizing or going on strike.
And yet, amid all this, poll after poll shows that Americans say the economy is absolutely awful (what Americans do in this supposedly awful economy is a different thing, which we’ll get to later). That such a strong labor market isn’t making a dent, opinion-wise, is a little weird. It seems like this jobs landscape should make the public feel better. […]
Perception by people is often caused by lack of facts and information. The failing falls on Democratic lack of attempts to educate the public over and over until it sinks in that wages are up and what the Biden administration has done over the last three years. Since so many watch Fox and do not learn what really is going on in this country, it is incumbent upon the DNC and anyone running as a Democrat to constantly present facts. Show how the GOP stifles wealth and inequality every single day and people will finally wake up to what is true and what is not.
Another wonderful article illustrating the problem, and why the working class are furious with academics and experts. As the article states: ““The reason we think it’s puzzling, why people are unhappy now, is because the evidence that a full employment economy makes people happy is overwhelming,” said Justin Wolfers, an economist at the University of Michigan.
and ““Full employment is so good for the economy. It raises wages, it brings people into the labor force who have been traditionally left behind, it is an extremely equalizing force,” said Bharat Ramamurti, former deputy director of the National Economic Council. But that equalizing force might be part of the perception problem. “I think a lot of people respond to that negatively because they’re on the other side of that equation.”
Note that for these economists what the people are responding to is not real, its just a “perception”, and therein lies the fury. A “Scientific” discipline which has whored itself to corporate agendas selling policy prescriptions which have been a disaster for the working class over the past 40 years, and what do they do as “experts”? They take away the validity of the working classes’ own expertise – the validity of the reality of their day to day lives. When you wonder why the commoners don’t believe experts, remember how they are treated by experts. I will acknowledge that the author of the article was willing to concede the validity of the worker’s experience but will this translate to the experts? The workers have been starved for wage gains over the past 40 years should we really expect them to be grateful when they are thrown a bone or two?