[American Greatness] In a romantic relationship, one cannot generally influence his partner’s emotions with rational argument. Feelings are unmediated, unruly, and mostly instinctual things. The same may be said for our feelings about the economy. They are not always rational, but that is not to say they are false or meaningless.
Joe Biden and his surrogates keep trying to convince and shame the American people into believing that the economy is doing great and that "Bidenomics" is the reason. Nice try. The people are unhappy and not buying it. While this is an emotional reaction, it also has a basis in real facts about the state of the economy, which are refracted through individuals’ personal circumstances.
The first and most glaring issue is that everything is more expensive than it was a few years ago. On top of this, wages have not kept up, real wealth and income have declined, and middle class people find themselves harried by competing and rising costs in healthcare, electricity, food, housing, tuition, and cars. People who thought of themselves as middle class sometimes find themselves descending into proletariat status. In the more extreme cases, people become homeless late in life, having lost all their resources to deal with job loss or other emergencies.
Biden and his surrogates are correct that unemployment remains low, and that the economy is still moving along. The 2007-2009 period of the Great Recession was far worse and far more frightening in this regard, at least for those of us working in the private sector. Lots of hard-working and productive people found themselves out of work because of massive disruptions to capital markets and the banking sector.
We have a different problem today, which is inflation. But inflation is also different because it affects nearly everyone. During the Great Recession large numbers of people never experienced significant pain, as unemployment only affected a minority of workers. While 10% unemployment is a huge number of people looking for work, it also means 90% of the other people who wanted jobs were finding and keeping them. |