(oh Happy Days)
These Happy Days are yours and mine, Happy Days."
TV opening credits theme, "Happy Days," 1974
Inflation is down. Unemployment is back at near all-time lows. Economic activity is at all time highs.
We should be happy.
Look at three charts:
The charts tell a simple story. We had a Covid crisis and things got bad for a while. Biden and Democrats took bold action, over near-unanimous GOP opposition. They got blamed for spending too much, for causing inflation, for ruining Americans' work ethic. Democrats argued they were providing strong medicine to fix a health crisis. Now, with the Infrastructure and Inflation Reduction Acts, Democrats say they are addressing longer-term problems. Democrats predicted that inflation was temporary and due to supply chain and labor force disruptions, and that the economy would get better. And it is. The cost to make things has gone down, and that is making its way into the inflation numbers.
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Americans are going through a period of adjustment. Some prices are down -- gasoline -- some prices are up -- goods that had relied on low-wage workers. Yesterday's post noted that college had become expensive in relation to incomes from jobs available to young, relatively unskilled workers. Fifty years ago people being paid at or near minimum wage could work their way though college -- even an expensive private college -- with summer and part time jobs, and graduate debt-free. I did. Now it is nearly impossible, even at the most affordable public institutions. We are seeing some "Bidenomics" here, too. Covid lockdowns and employment benefits enabled low-wage workers to re-evaluate their value. Employers complained they could not find employees. For workers, it was an opportunity. They saw that employers needed them. In Oregon, to get agricultural work done, one needs to pay at or near $25/hour. I have just received a bid to do some roof repairs, and roofers are billed at $50/hour. Americans were enjoying a bargain in the price of goods and services in some industries, but they were paying a social and political price. America had created an underclass of people mired in poverty, unable to afford housing, unable to service debt, relying on public benefits to survive. The system seemed "rigged" against them, fueling populist resentment and frustration. Covid-era disruption created a "general strike." Coming out of it, labor realized it had more power to get paid a living wage. Services will cost more. Farm workers, hotel maids, retail clerks, and restaurant servers may live better lives.
People do not live charts. They live lives. In politics, it's the economy, stupid. Biden's challenge is to share the story that the economy in America is getting better and to get people to feel and believe it. The economy is getting better.
Tomorrow's post: Americans don't think it is getting better. It is the summer of our discontent.
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9 comments:
...near-unanimous GOP opposition"
God forbid that Democratic policies might be successful. But I digress...
I think a subtext of this story is the necessity for an underclass to elevate the status of the wealthy. After all, what's the point of being rich if everyone is prosperous? The scandal of this century is wage depression creating an aristocracy that now threatens the democracy.
If allowed Republicans will install an autocrat, a royal family even, to preserve this hierarchy.
What the charts don’t show are all the people who can’t even afford the basics – food, shelter and medications. They also don’t account for the fact that, rather than pay for our own self-indulgence, we’re bestowing on our offspring a national debt that’s over $31 trillion and counting. The interest on it is $663 billion. That’s money that could have helped alleviate hunger and homelessness, but instead is going to investors and foreign governments.
At least the charts reflect actual substantive stuff but the polls (to which you have contrasted them) are highly idiosyncratic and individualize and not scientific or fact-based at all. Rather, the responses that pollsters capture are emotional, fleeting and quite disconnected from the charts. What's more, I do believe people who respond to polls often have nefarious objectives and aim to convey what they want the poll to convey rather than any sort of honest reckoning. But polls are important because, well, what else would journalists and bloggers write about?
Between what these charts show and what polls indicate, the limited political relevance of facts and data (as contrasted with feelings) is quite clear. Voters are not generally very much like Mr Spock.
Which raises the question: Will more voters make an intelligent choice, or one based on their ‘feeling’ that Trump won the 2020 election and is now being persecuted for taking a few innocent souvenirs?
My magic 🎱 says, “Outlook cloudy. Ask again later.“ 😃
My magic 🎱 says, “absolutely yes”!
Biden has my support, again.
Two thoughts crossed my mind as I read this:
1. I think using data as a communications tool is unconvincing to most people- especially those who distrust the supposed elites who are the guardians and explainers of that data. The old adage “figures don’t lie but liars figure” holds true in many peoples’ minds. Even the supposedly well-educated. In my corporate work I and my team use data to help executives make critical business decisions and yet, even there, many decisions are made on judgement calls which are rooted in gut feel. Most people are moved by stories, and the best story-tellers get the most following. Trump is a master at this, even if his critics point out the incoherence of his stories. Biden has proven to be an able public executive who can get things done. But his story-telling seems weak. Maybe why his small donations are down.
2. I had to smile when you thought $50/hour for a roofer was expensive. Let’s break it down. Assume the business has 10% home office overhead (office, staff, tools, trucks, insurance) and hopes to make 10% profit. That means the fully burdened rate of that employee costs about $41/hour. With taxes (FICA,FUTA,SUTA) healthcare and matching 401k- the W2 wages calculate to about $29/hour. That’s about $4600 month- assuming they can get 2000 hours/year. But roofing is weather-dependent and cyclical and assume they can get work only 80% - that means their monthly drops to about $3700 pretax. The average 1 br apartment in Medford costs about $1450/month- which is 39% of that wage. Try to stay solvent on that wage. Those American roofers are scraping by
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