It’s sad to see the conservative’s plan to dumb down America working so well

Maybe the commercal and financial Egonomy is on the rise. But the private economy of the average citizen is nof.

You need to ask yourself why? If unemployment is low and the economy is growing, then why are 3 in 5 struggling? If you have a room with 100 people and 100 pizzas, statistically the room has plenty of food. If 60 of the people complain that they are hungry, you wouldn’t scoff and tell them, “stop complaining, look at all the statistical pizza in the room! Things are actually quite good for everyone.” Sure, maybe some are falling for propaganda, but propaganda doesn’t get you 3 out of 5 people.

It is legitimately such a weird economy, because by all the standard broad metrics it is doing fine, but on an individual basis it varies widely. Cost of living has shot up with inflation, but wages generally didn’t go up to match, particularly for people who kept the same employer throughout the Pandemic until now.

The only metric that is important is how far their paycheck goes, and it simply doesn’t go as far anymore.

I find it so sad to see The Guardian of all news organizations join in on this bUt ThE eCoNoMy ThO bullshit. Fortunately it looks simply like a poorly written article, but that’s little comfort for the damaging effects it will have regardless, e.g. in my trust of The Guardian articles henceforth.

Also, it’s not just that, when it combines clickbait headlines with the first half of the article working to obfuscate the Truth with correct but irrelevant facts - beatings will continue until moral improves - even if the second half tries to sound more balanced. Is Fox News going to be the goal now, even if only for the first half of every article, going forward?

Average people, who don’t own stock (or if they do, don’t rely on it as their primary source of income) could care less about bUt ThE eCoNoMy ThO or even the theoretical underpinnings of inflation, and care far more about their current job security and cost of actual food. Whether the proper term of “recession” applies or if it instead is some other word that should be used to describe it, either way the economy is “not good”, so hyper-focusing on uneducated people not knowing the technical definition of “recession” doesn’t seem to be helping the situation any? Even if it sells advertising space for this article:-(.

The AutoTL;DR summary, with no title and much of the rage-baiting removed, is much better than the actual article.

The issue is voters talk about how regular people are doing, while politicians talk about “the economy” which is rich people and business…

For them, shits going great. Because their record profits are coming from regular Americans being priced gouged.

Also, I stopped reading when the article clearly couldn’t understand inflation compliants.

The poll underscored people’s complicated emotions around inflation. The vast majority of respondents, 72%, indicated they think inflation is increasing. In reality, the rate of inflation has fallen sharply from its post-Covid peak of 9.1% and has been fluctuating between 3% and 4% a year.

In April, the inflation rate went down from 3.5% to 3.4% – far from inflation’s 40-year peak of 9.1% in June 2022 – triggering a stock market rally that pushed the Dow Jones index to a record high.

The inflation rate is slowly going down. But it’s a rate, prices are still up and continuing to go up. That 9.1% from 2022 is still baked into the 3% increase we’re experiencing.

Like. Say it was 100, 9% increase makes it 109. 3% of 109 is more than 3% of 9%.

It’s compounded

So the inflation rate should go down but it’s not like that means lower prices, it just means 1% increase now is more than a 1% increase in the past.

And that’s not even getting into the harsh truth about inflation and capitalism:

A lack of inflation means people save money. That takes money out of circulation. A lot of our problems are because the wealthy do that with huge sums.

If enough money gets taken out of circulation then it leads to a recession as there’s less money floating around and changing hands.

We need inflation to prop up this bullshit economic system the wealthy are obsessed with.

The Harris poll is garbage: https://www.thecrimson.com/column/forging-harvards-future/article/2024/3/26/bodnick-/

Polling isn’t going to change people’s minds about it FEELING like a recession. It certainly feels like anyone who owns or controls any sort of economic production is on a cash-grab bender, jacking up prices on absolutely everything, and finding new ways to exploit the populace while the getting is good. People can’t afford the basic staples of life. It FEELS pretty dire.

Isn’t this the same old “ThE eCoNoMy Is DoInG gReAt, WhY aRe YoU cOmPlAiNiNg?” BS as always?

The average person doesn’t care how well the rich people’s game is going if they’re struggling to afford their groceries because of said rich people’s game.

People can’t afford rent and food. The most Biden has done to address the corporate greed and price gouging is telling them to knock it off lol. The attempts at trying to gaslight people into believing the economy is good won’t work.

Corpo say economy is great because green line. I went from $200 for a month of food to $400 while losing 30 pounds. Retirement is fiction. I even got a new job paying double of what my old job was just to stay stagnant.

There not playing the same game as us.

We are obviously not currently in a recession but the economy is not great for regular folks, however it has not been since like the 90’s.

I have a friend with whom i disagree on most issues. They were recently complaining about how bad the economy is, how expensive food is, and that their family can’t afford to eat beef. They have a large house, they’ve been paying an extra $1000-2000 per month on their mortgage for the last two years, and they invited 2 adult children to move home so the kids could save money for houses. They watch Fox News (or worse) and believe they’re struggling. I pointed out some cheap chicken and other items in a grocery ad and the response was, “but those are just the things that are on sale; everything else is expensive.” I was stunned - almost everything i buy is on sale. Yes…you’re right…the wagyu costs more than it used to.

My kids also complain, “Our grocery bill is twice what it was two years ago!” Maybe because you’re now spending $75/wk in protein shakes and supplements?

I’m not saying that people aren’t struggling or that they shouldn’t be able to buy things they want, but the people who complain the loudest (in my experience) are not the ones who are in the most difficult situations.

As a millennial in the middle class it feels like we’ve been in a recession since 2008.

Any working class person living in the elements of this economy will tell you it is not good; cherry-picked indicators in these reports be damned. When the people tell you they are hurting in numbers this large, leaders must listen, not ignore.