It’s pretty simple. The stock market doesn’t reflect how your average American is doing. Straight from the article itself:

“Adjusting for government transfers and taxes, the average annual income for someone in the lower half of earners was $34,800 when Biden took office, according to an analysis provided by Gabriel Zucman, an economist at the University of California, Berkeley.

That average fell to $26,100 by March 2023 in a sign that wage growth could not make up for the loss of government aid.”

Roughly 60% of Americans right now are living paycheck to paycheck. Home ownership is basically impossible thanks to megacorps buying up single family housing. Combine that with inflation, the higher cost of basic necessities, higher-than-ever rent prices, and of course people are going to be jaded about the economy.

Whenever anyone says "the economy", you can and should mentally substitute it with "rich people's yacht money".

Rich people's yacht money doing well doesn't do shit for 90% of the population. It doesn't pay the rent, put food on the table or clothes on their back. They can't afford to see a doctor or ride the damn bus.

And you want them to be happy because some stockbroker is getting a second holiday in the Maldives this year?

Stupid arrogant fucks.

the grocery stores and the rest of the capitalist pigs have yet to stop price gouging

Pollsters and economists say there has never been as wide a gap between the underlying health of the economy and public perception.

There's never been as wide a gap between the rich and the working class, either. Gee, I wonder if that could have something to do with it?!

Wages have not kept up with inflation. Why is this so hard for the media to understand?

Because they’re calling the stock market “the economy” instead of actually looking at the qol of the average American. It’s just more ammo for the government only cares about the rich and corps argument

“Things are getting better and people think things are going to get worse ...

Because they are worse ... because many people don't have a well-paying job as a pollster ... and it's expected that the price of groceries will still rise in 2024 ... and rent will still go up ... and fires/droughts/storms/heatwaves will get worse ... and electricity/water bills will still go up ...

It always surprises me when otherwise intelligent people seem to set aside their critical thinking skills.

Stronger economy for who?

Second, Biden recently started to blame inflation on corporations that hiked prices when they saw an opportunity to improve their profits, bringing more prominence to an argument first used when gasoline prices spiked. The president's argument is suspicious to many economists, yet the intended message to voters is that Biden is fighting for them against those he blames for fueling inflation.

“Let me be clear: Any corporation that is not passing these savings on to the consumers needs to stop their price gouging,” Biden said recently in Pueblo, Colorado. “The American people are tired of being played for suckers.”

Wow. There's no question who's side the reporter is on.

Abcnews shut the fuck up. You republiQan corporate pulp mill fuckers.

“Voters feel horrible about it” fuck you.

The oligarch-owned media shouts that everything is terrible when the only thing they care about, the interest rates that impacts their cost to borrow capital, is going up because that limits their ability to run their VC Ponzi schemes. The far-left media and far-right media shout that everything is terrible all the time because they both start from wanting a revolution that tears everything down and won't ever let reality get in the way of that being the proper solution; things must always be bad and getting worse to justify their revolution. And that's basically of all of our media.

I came in here to try to explain it again and find post after post of people explaining it for me. I am so proud of you guys.

Now, somebody tell the DNC that...

I swear this is like the 5th "Economy is great but people are suffering for some weird reason" article on this community lmao

And every single time without fail everyone in the comments is showing a big middle finger to these awful pieces lol

Remember kids, 'the economy' means 'rich people's portfolios'.

it's not his 'fault'.

if you want someone, anyone, to blame, it's the republican clowns in congress and the greedy af CEOs.

Lake said voters no longer want to just see inflation rates fall — rather, they want an outright decline in prices, something that last happened on a large scale during the Great Depression.

“Honestly, I’m kind of mystified by it,” she said.

My dad told me once: "never trust the words that come out after the 'honestly' or before the 'but'."

This is because economists don't knock on doors or talk to people.

Gr. Have to admit, it's kinda annoying when people are still mystified these days. I could understand being mystified 5 years ago, but today, you should have too much evidence.

It's the information space, of course, and how its being utilized to try to rip the west apart. You think being within that process is going to feel stable, normal and predictable? No, no probably not.

Mystifying my ass. Only way it's mystifying is if you believe all conspiracies are fake. Which is just as dumb as thinking all of them are real. Countries absolutely plot against each other though, this is an extremely real and common form of conspiracy throughout history. Look as Kissingers legacy. We engaged in plenty of global conspiracies ourselves, throwing out this or that dictator, training militants here and over there. Do people think "that could never happen here?" or something? Even knowing how dumb Americans can be sometimes? And how about companies, driving these things for profit?

Terrified, infuriated, completely demotivated. Fine, I can understand all those. But mystified just makes me want to slap you. This is not mysterious at all, it's intentional manipulation with propaganda that is achieving sound results. Is she not seeing the propaganda or something, do I have to email her some examples so she understands?

Then there's another piece to the puzzle where many Americans just don't realize inflation represents year-on-year change, and instead view it as total change over time. That's honestly the smaller piece of the puzzle imo, though, Americans are often a little dumb on the details. Fucking annoying though, that I can see this and I'm just a dumb motherfucker on the internet, not a professional pollster.

/rant

Sorry, that one really bugs me, huge pet peeve. I think something has to be wrong with you at this point, if you can't understand why Trump gets the votes he does all through America, and how that relates to things as small as people misunderstanding inflation. Or misunderstanding race... or gender... or economics... or science... or facts... or the media... or education... or the federal govt... or the first amendment... or the civil war... or ... I could go for a long fucking time.

Anyone in here mystified? I figure people around here probably know better, since Fediverse kinda is an information space project in itself.

edit: Thinking about this further, this is probably fueling things like anti-semitism and Q too. Anyone can notice that there's large amounts of disagreement on the things I listed a couple paragraphs up.

In looking for a potential source for the problem, it's easy to stumble on the idea of some shadowy cabal running the world and driving these things. This solution is simple, and it feels good. It's kinda sexy, in a fantastical way. Whereas the much more mundane possibilities are ugly and complicated, and would not make for a fun story at all.

Yeah, it's not getting stronger. It's crumbling before our eyes and they're just blatantly lying about it to save face.

if the economy is so great why am i taking a shit outside in the tenderloin

Biden's economy ;)

Lol I bet Hillary Clinton wants Trump to win in 2024.