289
submitted 6 months ago by MicroWave@lemmy.world to c/politics@lemmy.world

Nearly three in five Americans wrongly believe the US is in an economic recession, and the majority blame the Biden administration, according to a Harris poll conducted exclusively for the Guardian. The survey found persistent pessimism about the economy as election day draws closer.

The poll highlighted many misconceptions people have about the economy, including:

  • 55% believe the economy is shrinking, and 56% think the US is experiencing a recession, though the broadest measure of the economy, gross domestic product (GDP), has been growing.

  • 49% believe the S&P 500 stock market index is down for the year, though the index went up about 24% in 2023 and is up more than 12% this year.

  • 49% believe that unemployment is at a 50-year high, though the unemployment rate has been under 4%, a near 50-year low.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[-] dhork@lemmy.world 8 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago)

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.

[-] givesomefucks@lemmy.world 14 points 6 months ago

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.

I took some pretty high level statistical analysis courses back in the day, with a professor who is about as close to "rockstar" as someone can be in the field of statistical analysis.

One thing he always said was that it was easy to paint a picture exactly the way someone wants while being 100% honest and reporting real numbers.

What was hard, was picking thru all the numbers, identifying trends, and quantifying the effects and how likely a bunch of changes would play out to predict future outcomes.

Our economy runs on "numbers must go up".

If a CEO of a publicly traded company says anything other than "Shits amazing!" The numbers go down.

Because stock prices are really just investors opinion, real life doesn't have much effect on the economy.

So everyone cheats a little (or a lot) to make their numbers seem like everything is great. Do a meta analysis on those numbers, and it looks like everyone is doing great.

But it's all just because no one wants to be the one to say it's not.

Because in our economy, if people think things are bad, then that makes things bad. People sell stocks and hide money under mattresses (what the rich do with offshore accounts) and that Cascades I to not enough money to buy anything. And then not enough sales to employ people.

It's a feedback loop that the only way to prevent is constantly telling people everything is fine.

The longer we let 0.01% of the population hoard insane wealth, the more we risk the death spiral

It's getting to the point where they have so much, they're the entire economy. If they decide to just bury all their gold, we're fucked.

So we have to keep making these rich assholes think everything is great and numbers will always go up.

Or just tax their fucking wealth...

[-] Jentu@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 points 6 months ago

I know basically nothing about economics, but from what it seems, I shouldn’t be wishing for record losses instead of record profits? They both seem to have a cascading effect that fucks us from what it seems (but them buying more yachts while we hurt definitely feels worse than all of us hurting).

this post was submitted on 22 May 2024
289 points (88.9% liked)

politics

19145 readers
1928 users here now

Welcome to the discussion of US Politics!

Rules:

  1. Post only links to articles, Title must fairly describe link contents. If your title differs from the site’s, it should only be to add context or be more descriptive. Do not post entire articles in the body or in the comments.

Links must be to the original source, not an aggregator like Google Amp, MSN, or Yahoo.

Example:

  1. Articles must be relevant to politics. Links must be to quality and original content. Articles should be worth reading. Clickbait, stub articles, and rehosted or stolen content are not allowed. Check your source for Reliability and Bias here.
  2. Be civil, No violations of TOS. It’s OK to say the subject of an article is behaving like a (pejorative, pejorative). It’s NOT OK to say another USER is (pejorative). Strong language is fine, just not directed at other members. Engage in good-faith and with respect! This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban.
  3. No memes, trolling, or low-effort comments. Reposts, misinformation, off-topic, trolling, or offensive. Similarly, if you see posts along these lines, do not engage. Report them, block them, and live a happier life than they do. We see too many slapfights that boil down to "Mom! He's bugging me!" and "I'm not touching you!" Going forward, slapfights will result in removed comments and temp bans to cool off.
  4. Vote based on comment quality, not agreement. This community aims to foster discussion; please reward people for putting effort into articulating their viewpoint, even if you disagree with it.
  5. No hate speech, slurs, celebrating death, advocating violence, or abusive language. This will result in a ban. Usernames containing racist, or inappropriate slurs will be banned without warning

We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules, to use critical thinking when reading, posting or commenting. Users that post off-topic spam, advocate violence, have multiple comments or posts removed, weaponize reports or violate the code of conduct will be banned.

All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users.

That's all the rules!

Civic Links

Register To Vote

Citizenship Resource Center

Congressional Awards Program

Federal Government Agencies

Library of Congress Legislative Resources

The White House

U.S. House of Representatives

U.S. Senate

Partnered Communities:

News

World News

Business News

Political Discussion

Ask Politics

Military News

Global Politics

Moderate Politics

Progressive Politics

UK Politics

Canadian Politics

Australian Politics

New Zealand Politics

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS