US consumers remain unimpressed with this progress, however, because they remember what they were paying for things pre-pandemic. Used car prices are 34% higher, food prices are 26% higher and rent prices are 22% higher than in January 2020, according to our calculations using PCE data.
While these are some of the more extreme examples of recent price increases, the average basket of goods and services that most Americans buy in any given month is 17% more expensive than four years ago.
It’s the same reason Republicans are asking “are you better off than you were four years ago?”
Anyone with an existing ideology probably knows who they are voting for. Swing voters are emotional.
Republicans are whistling to those just willing to judge the economy based on a Democrat being in office.
Biden is trying to thread the needle by pointing out there have been positive indicators without shirting on his own policies or advocating straight up anti capitalist messages.
After the primaries, the race is always a race to the middle.
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Yes the Biden years have not been some sort of economic triumph, but if you take the question at face value, how were things four years ago? They were horrible. Unemployment was record highs. Stocks had tanked. Hundreds of thousands of people were about to die. Etc etc etc.
That’s the problem with the binary decision, about the role of president, who doesn’t even make a lot of the critical economic decisions anyways.
The economy is not “good” but many indicators have been improving or are better than expected. But mishandling an event like a pandemic will certainly tank the economy, just like neoliberal policies will generally lead to a good stock market and little else.
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