Why Voters Hate Biden's Booming Economy

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Well considering my wages didn't move that much, my expenses went up even when I cut back, and the biggest goal post, buying a house, went from 5+ years out to now essentially impossible at current prices, and our plans to have kids went from "soon" to "probably never" because we couldn't afford a good life for our baby, I wouldn't say I am feeling any part of this "booming" economy.

It's like the GDP has basically become disconnected from the lives of actual people

From what I observed, if you look at the employment data, you will see that in Biden's economy, the majority of the gains are for blue collar workers in manufacturing and healthcare. In contrast, the majority of the losses are white collar workers in tech and finance, both suffers from high interest rate and layoffs. Not to mention this also affect recent college graduates who struggle to find jobs. This group is relatively more represented in our media, both social and mainstream.

I don't think the graphs fully include the pressure of interest rates and price increases in specific sectors. Home prices skyrocketed during the pandemic and then interest rates went up significantly. Not too long ago, about 80% of Americans could afford the average home, now its just about 30%. This does not include the fact that the main things people buy and rely on, like food, gasoline, and rent, have skyrocketed while inflation in other things that were in the CPI, like electronics, went down in value. There are also lots of layoffs in high paying industries like tech while retail is seeing a rise in demand.

Do note that the negativity bias does not only relate to people choosing for negative news rather than positive news when given the choice, but also that when people hear both positive and negative news, they are more affected by the negative news than positive news.

Why people are negative: car prices, house prices and interest, food prices

The whole discussion made me think of Goodhart's Law, "When a measure becomes a target it ceases to be a good measure." Policies are made to affect the metrics that will make it look like the economy is doing well. People don't pay attention to those metrics and they go off of how their spending is effected, their savings and how secure they feel at work. It's an experience i am sure many people have had where a doctor tells you, that you are fine but you don't feel fine.

I just got off my 3rd shift work yay ima watch this and then pass tf out good video mate

It'd a nice rule if people remember that GDP is not all economy.

I've seen data which breaks down real wage changes by percentile cohorts. While medium income earners saw their incomes stagnate, high earners' wages went down and low earner's wages actually went up. Those most benefitting from the booming economy may therefore simply be younger/busier/less politically engaged than your medium voter or survey taker. The other major factor, which you only sort of touch on here, is housing prices. While individuals' personal finances may be doing fine, the dream of homeownership has vanished entirely for many. I believe this alone could be enough to crush economic sentiment.

Yeah, blue state NIMBY's are the main reason people are leaving blue states for red ones. But maybe that's bad for Republicans politically as these people move to red states and turn them purple

I'd love to see a video explaining how much of an economy can be influenced by a sitting president. Personally, I think we give these people way too much credit.

The aggregate numbers on economic performance grossly underweight the costs that are actually felt by the middle class, with housing being the worst offender. Economists say that I can't possibly be worse off financially now than I was in 2019. Well I am, and by a huge margin, because I don't own a house. I make a little more money, but the mortgage on the houses I could've bought back then has doubled. I have been priced out of living anywhere near my job, and this has had a very real negative impact on my life. The same problem is impacting everyone in the US who doesn't already own a home. I say this as a staunch Democrat who will not be voting for Trump. After all, the zero percent interest rates and trillions in government spending that kicked off this inflation nightmare started under his administration. Inflation always lags money printing by at least 9-12 months.

Not really accurate to look at states when you're looking at partisanship in USA. We're split between urban and rural. Fact is its gotten way more expensive to live in cities because of housing. It kills any wage gains. I'd say thats why Democrats aren't so happy with the economy. The cost of everything in and around cities has gone up dramatically.

I recently spoke to prof Stephanie Kelton who helped Biden design the stimulus package about its effects. Check out the interview here: https://youtu.be/LGlqnHTBP3I?si=fNZgagocHLwqAeNH&t=141

This is the best econ channel on youtube, i wish there were more channels like this.

I've been out of work for over 3 months now. Not a lot of jobs compared to the number of people looking. All of them pay $40k to $50k less than I was making before.

I think economics has a measurement problem when it comes to GDP. What you're measuring there is the level of monetization in the economy. Over time, and between economies, GDP does tend to correlate well with other forms of productivity. That does not imply that more GDP means a "better' economy in each and every occasion. (Unless you intend to represent solely the interests of financial institutions which have a much more direct relationship with GDP.) If a corporation judges its economic conditions by profit, so too do individuals. When you're judging the economy by survey, I think that data's going to correlate better with personal savings rate than GDP. This is at a long term low. I'd look at the costs of healthcare, education/training, housing, food, debt servicing as potential culprits. No one gets anywhere savings wise in a GDP optimized economy. It's borrow and spend. I think a more nuanced multi perspective analysis is required to see the problem with a booming economy for bankers.

Housing/rent, healthcare and higher education are through the roof, not to mention food prices. If your housing cost goes up 30% then stops going up is everything ok now? No, you've got to contend with that increase forever. If the price of a house goes up 20% do you pay 20% more? No, a lot more than that because interest rates have gone up too and over 30 years most of what you pay is interest. More jobs huh? Employment includes part-time. These are not real jobs with benefits and a future, and that's where most of the gains have come from. What the hell do I care what the government statistics say--or the media for that matter. I live in the real world.