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There is a lively debate about how the U.S. economy is doing, and whether it’s been getting better or worse as the nation emerges from the pandemic. Democrats point to an increase in wages, record-low unemployment, and an increasing number of Americans who report they are now “happy” with their job. Meanwhile, Republicans point to skyrocketing mortgage rates, the housing crisis, and increased costs for consumer and commercial loans.
With each side presenting legitimate arguments, many Americans are left without a clear picture of how the economy is doing or how they should feel about it.
Straight Arrow News contributor Larry Lindsey briefly reviews some of the data behind these talking points and then challenges Democrats to expand their thinking to better understand why so many Americans still feel left out in the cold.
Making things also worse are things that don’t even appear in the inflation index, but are very important to how people feel about how their lives are going. Public schools, for example. Families with kids know perfectly well that public schools are declining in quality. And they got that presented to them during COVID, when they basically had to homeschool their kids. That’s deteriorating. It’s not in the price index. But it’s an important part of whether you think things are getting better or worse.
A similar situation is true with crime, which is getting worse in the country. Compounding that is a sense that you hear from many, even Democrat mayors, that we are being overwhelmed at the borders, and we now have tent cities going up to house all these people. We had 2.4 million illegal immigrants come across the southern border last year. That’s a phenomenal number. It’s three times the amount of legal immigrants that enter the country.
So all of these effects of Biden policies are making Americans feel worse. It’s not just that their spending power of what they earn is going down. It’s the fact that they can’t buy the things they used to be able to buy, in part because of regulation, and the so-called public goods that they use — safe streets, public schools — are declining as well.
This, unfortunately, is the centerpiece of President Biden’s policies. Perhaps the administration and Celinda Lake and Democratic pollsters may want to take that into account when they figure out why Americans are feeling bad, even though the administration thinks things are getting better.
