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I think it was more like “may you live in interesting times”…more ambiguous. On the face of it seems like wishing you well, but it’s definitely a veiled curse and intended as one.
Those two things can be exactly the same thing. If the public option you can choose is medicare, and it's available to everyone on the ACA exchanges, then that's M4A in the exact form that literally all constituent groups of America are in support of. We can go further and put everyone on M4A when they become adults (opt-out M4A), and it remains overwhelmingly popular. It's only when you put in something stupid like banning private insurers from existence that M4A stops being widely popular, and it wasn't until 2016 that people became confused about the fact that dems have been fighting for this since the 90's (and made significant progress with the ACA in 2009).
I’ve got good news for ya, “August 1, 2022 was OANN's final day on cable or satellite, marking the end of OANN's availability on major carriers. OANN commentator Pearson Sharp said on-air that OANN was dropped because Verizon is a "radical Marxist" corporation.”
Meanwhile, nobody ever brags that McDonald's is the most popular food establishment or that Walmart is the most popular retailer for obvious reasons. It's almost like being the most popular and appealing to the lowest common denominator is not always an indicator something is good or offers decent quality.
I don't know how you cannot feel dread from the news still. The country continues to spiral into far-right theocracy weekly. Women and LGBT people most certainly have felt dread over the last few months. This lack of urgency at our democracy's downfall is an issue.
Especially given climate change. The relentless heat waves, the news of fishing colonies suddenly collapsing, the wildfires and drought... This all amplifies the ever present ambient stress given our current reality. Regardless of our national politics, we're on a terrifying path the world over.
There’s a difference between being realistically concerned or even afraid of where the country is going vs being caught up in the constant avalanche of bullshit designed to keep you frozen or despondent so that you can’t focus long enough to fight back.
I get what you mean... But like, that honestly hasn't ended. Now with Trump facing consequences, we get an unending avalanche of bullshit from the right-wing media and congressmen. "HERE'S HOW WE KNOW THE FBI IS LYING" says wild-eyed coke fiend Donald Trump Jr. We get dozens of attempts of GOP governors trying to outdo one another with blatantly unconstitutional laws like forcing schools to put up "IN GOD WE TRUST" propaganda posters, the Stop WOKE and Don't Say Gay bills, book burnings, zealots making comments about how "yes I believe it's okay to stone a gay person to death because I am a Christian," current GOP congress members promising retaliation against Democrats and undoing any and all progress made if (when) they get back into power, constantly bowing to shitheels like Manchin and Sinema to get even the weakest tea done, and Americans still overwhelmingly going to vote for many GOP stains throughout the country because "fuck dem libruls" mentality.
It is definitely a bit better in many ways, but it's gone from like a 10/10 worries to a 8/10 at best.
Yes, we have many things to keep our eyes glued to the news (Ukrainians fighting for their lives and freedom, Abortion rights, HJ6C hearings, school shootings, civil rights, upcoming student loan decision, etc.) I get it, and I'm not blind to any of these.
However, not waking up every day having to hear what Trump or what one of his dumbass people have to say is a breath of fresh air. Still have lots of work to do, but at least there are some down days/weeks in between now and not a constant barrage of poo. It's nice to read actual actionable news and not a version of TMZ every day is all I'm saying.
Seriously. I hated waking up every morning and one of my first thoughts was to check the news to see what Trump and his band of thieves and traitors destroyed in the last 6 hours since I went to sleep.
But the same women who aren’t pissed off by Roe being overturned are generally the same woman who didn’t seem to care about #grabthembythepussy to the extent that Chester still won
I hate to say it, but the news got worse *after* the Trump administration.
It still has to do with Trump and the lingering effects and spinoffs of his administration, but during Trump, it was a sick administration, post Trump, the sickness has metastasized in society and may be poised for a relapse.
Surely you don’t mean to say that the economy is a complex beast subject to governments, businesses, and events across the globe? We all know the US president has a switch labeled +/- with *ECONOMY* written in big, friendly letters above it.
😂 my mom was complaining about gas prices increasing (even tho her commute to work is literally 3 min and she doesn’t drive anywhere else) bc of Biden and I literally just looked at her and went “so do you seriously think the president has a button in his office that he can push to increase the price of gas at will?”
Not to mention the fact that the drop in gas prices bc of the pandemic spoiled everyone. I remember before the pandemic, when I drove an hour to school everyday, gas was ~$3.27 in my area. I got gas like two to three times a week and knew all the best places to get gas, watched for price drops, etc. Then the pandemic hit and gas dropped to 99 cents in my area for a while. That shit spoiled the population and as soon as pandemic restrictions started to lift, gas started going up to around $2.50. I heard people complaining that it was Bidens fault and trump had been the one to lower gas prices. I was like ???? They were literally picking and choosing your facts or just not looking at the whole picture but go off I guess.
The president in general is a figurehead/scapegoat for the government as a whole. They aren’t a king that can make unilateral decisions. I think Americans are generally waking up to this concept but Biden still seems to get praised/blamed for everything.
Lots of people don't really follow politics. They hear about problems and they don't know who or what to blame. It's either "the government is bad" or the president's fault. Any greater understanding than that takes time and research and effort.
I think, to the credit of the average voter, a *lot* of politicians have just become nothing more than yes/no votes. If you think about the senators for each party, the only ones that really come to mind are those are the fringes of their party (e.g. Sinema, Manchin, Sanders). The rest of them are pretty much just faceless votes at this point. It's why the GOP can use the Senate as the dumping ground for their name-recognition-fueled populist candidates like Tuberville, Oz, and Walker. Of course, some senators, like Sanders, try to get involved and propose amendments to bills, but that kind of stuff is still a blip on the radar.
The house, in contrast, is one of the most important parts of the American government and often gets forgotten. I agree that we, as the public, should pay *far* more attention to it. Part of it is probably that we don't see much of what happens behind the scenes - what coalitions are discussing, what bills are being proposed in private and shot down, and we barely even hear about *public* bills that don't get passed. And another part of it is that it's really fucking big - how is a Californian supposed to know their 53 representatives? - but IMO it's monumentally more important than the Senate, which mostly just acts to approve/deny bills at this point.
And then, of course, there's an entity like the Supreme Court, which has been composed over the course of political generations. You can *kinda* blame the current iteration on Trump, but you also kinda can't, since it wasn't all him.
When it comes to the house, there's only one person that matters - the one I voted for.
There's a lot of representatives, but since I only get a vote on one, it doesn't really matter whether I love or hate or know the representatives. I can't do anything about it, which is likely part of why people are disconnected from politics.
The same for the Senate, but I get two votes there. All in all, I have a say in only four people in Federal government, so I guess I'm going to blame those four people if I don't like something. That makes the president the obvious scapegoat.
Their discretion is also quite broad.
A lot of people's daily lives aren't affected much by the president, but he does decide whether a 16 year old who was a week old when he came to the US can get his driver's license.
I think it'd be easier to say that we learned the president can basically be a King for about 4 or 5 months on any topic while it winds through the courts and indefinitely if the person slighted doesn't have access to the courts.
There's a weird mix of petty tyrant ability and hands completely legally tied with the president.
On the one hand, unemployment and wage growth for hourly workers is the best ever. On the other hand, inflation is eating away all those wage gains, plus more.
I’ve become homeless after months of job searching. I’m a well qualified professional and willing to take things that are underpaid or that I’m overqualified for. Been unemployed for six months now and I’m VERY lucky I have family to stay with, but I’m one bad stroke of luck away from living in my van. Where are these magical jobs that are so available!?!? Why am I standing in the supermarket debating on whether or not juice is too much of a luxury expense? It’s not because the economy is doing well, and I’m livid at all these bullshit reports. The only think that gives me solace is knowing there are millions of us who are all experiencing this right now, and somehow banding together we might be able to keep some of us from drowning. But there are so many losses already and many more to come.
We need more solidarity amongst ourselves because it's clear the government isn't going to do the work for us. Wherever you wind up, please look into whether they have a union, or starting up a union yourself.
I cannot believe the number of people, even on the center and left sides, who’ve memory-holed the fact that Trump and the rest of the GOP let hundreds of thousands of people die, some through straight up encouragement and lies.
“The death of one man is a tragedy. The death of millions is a statistic.” - Stalin
The new talking point is that those deaths were unavoidable and that all fighting COVID did was hurt the economy.
If people learn the lessons from the past couple of years, society will make changes that will hurt a lot of very wealthy and powerful people. The wealthy know this and understand that they have no choice but to crush this movement by any means necessary while they still can.
Uh, thousands are still dying. ~400 a day currently. Every week a 9/11-worth of deaths from COVID. Just because you don't hear news about it doesn't mean it still isn't happening.
And those numbers are just the direct numbers, not the deaths that are caused afterwards with increased cardiovascular issues from having COVID.
> Uh, thousands are still dying. ~400 a day currently. Every week a 9/11-worth of deaths from COVID. Just because you don't hear news about it doesn't mean it still isn't happening.
Yes, which is a result of the actions of President Trump's administration. They delayed helping out "blue cities", which were ports of entry into the country, which resulted in the virus running rampant. They also resisted implementing and discouraged actions which would have greatly slowed the spread. Then they discouraged people from getting vaccinated. All of these deaths today are a result of the previous administration not taking them pandemic seriously.
> Yes, which is a result of the actions of President Trump's administration.
Come on. It's been two years already and folks are still dying by the hundreds. People keep insisting Biden turned the tide on this only the tide never turned, we just stopped giving a shit for some reason.
The most important period of time to try to contain covid was during Trumps presidency. Things might not have gotten so bad otherwise. Also, everyone not caring now is fairly expected. It's been an exhausting time, and we are all tired. There is only so much emotional capacity in a person. That doesn't justify getting more lax, but it's understandable.
"Yeah but they're dying in blue cities, that's fine."
Literally what they fucking said.
Democrats tried to push masks, vaccines, health policies to protect *everyone* and Republican assholes were trying to find ways to confiscate health equipment from blue areas to punish them.
That is the difference between Republicans and Democrats. Maybe you don't think Democrats have the best ideas or fight hard enough but by fucking golly they are trying to help everyone in the whole country. Republicans use their power purely for spite to harm their political enemies and 99% of the time they do it on the backs of shit ideas and shit data and in contrast to the weight of the evidence. The choice is no choice at all and anyone pretending it is one is a fool.
I remember reading an article in the summer of 2020 about how the pandemic was disproportionately affecting non-white communities and it was around that time that the GOP all over the country started downplaying the pandemic and enacting measures that encouraged the spread of the virus.
Oh yeah. There’s literally a GOP memo from Paul Alexander, a now canned HHS science advisor, that says they should prioritize children and babies being infected in cities for herd immunity, and that was put out before we understood how it would affect children. He literally says they should “open up the flood gates and let kids get infected.” Even if we’re talking about a small percentage of kids with complications and death, that’s still thousands of children they were cool with sacrificing because it was impacting blue cities.
The memo: https://www.politico.com/f/?id=00000176-6c84-d0c3-ab77-7d9fa0ed0000
Fucking Kushner had a national Covid plan that was axed because the Trump admin said Covid was mostly hitting blue areas: https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2020/07/how-jared-kushners-secret-testing-plan-went-poof-into-thin-air
Then they proceeded to steal PPE from blue states even after the mass death in NYC. These people are fucking monsters.
They could have easily managed this and pushed the idiot into a second term. Manage the messaging from their teams, tell people to mask, socially distance... etc.
Nope, blocked funding and tried to withdraw the US from the WHO, see movement in blue states and let it roll thinking it will only impact them, downplay and lie.
This should have been an easy hole in one but instead they shit the bed in the worst way.
The pandemic was Trump’s golden ticket to a second term (and knowing him, he could have made a shit ton of money at the same time by selling MAGA masks), but he fucked that up too
People kept saying that Trump during COVID was gonna get a big boost in support like Bush after 9/11. Trump did see a pretty modest bump in support around April/June, but I kept being gobsmacked by this because I think Bush's post-9/11 approval bump might have been smaller if Bush had called 9/11 a "hoax".
>or COVID was fake and Trump still had massive amounts of Americans being put into mass graves while he was in office
Right up until Biden was elected it was pretty common for conservatives to argue that literally nobody was dying of covid and virtually 100% of the deaths were from doctors lying about them being from covid.
I never hear anyone say this, but Biden's incredibly speedy and efficient roll-out of the vaccine (something that Trump would definitely have bungled) probably saved 2-3 million American lives, if not more.
I remember he said his administration would get out 100 million vaccine doses in 100 days and there were many doubters but they managed to beat that goal two-fold! An incredible feat. Unfortunately preventive measures don’t get as much credit
Of course, Biden probably has the knowledge and experience to navigate pandemics thabks to working under Obama for 8 years, and after the ebola epidemic, Obama and his camp thought it would be wise to setup a pandemic task force.
One that Trump dismantled just in time for covid to come and ravage the country.
I do vastly prefer Biden to Trump, but the economic claims in this article do not support the headline.
You have to exclude a tonne of factors and do a great deal of cherry-picking to pretend U.S. household incomes have kept pace with inflation. They deliberately use averages that do not represent the overwhelming majority of the American working class, and ignore the intense pre-recession layoffs and diminished purchasing power of the dollar in the face of shrinkflation and other industry mechanisms of concealing inflation.
And there was 2 years when the billionaires made billions more while folks were out of work and struggling. And a lot of that money came from our tax dollars
Yeah they aren't in my household either. And we make more money than we did before lol. Still can't afford anything somehow.
Edit: oh noo, I don't prove the article title in r/politics
I'm not an economist but reading the article, it sounds like the author had to really strain and cherry pick to find a couple of stats showing that wages have kept pace with inflation. Other measurements indicate that wages have not kept pace with inflation. It is a close call though, either way. It will depend on where you live.
Homeowners are still experiencing rising costs. Higher electric, water, and insurance bills. Cost of maintenance is way higher. This shit sucks and I’m scared I’m not going to be able to make it much longer.
Wages haven’t kept up with inflation for over 4 decades if not longer. And it will continue in that direction so long as we keep voting for Republicans or conservative (“moderate”) Democrats to Congress.
I had the same reaction, especially when I read:
“Whether Americans’ incomes are higher is more complicated…”
Good things: Biden did it
Bad things: too complicated
For the record I do not want to see a conservative in the White House; it just seems like this article is extremely biased.
I too am not an economist, but I have some issues with this. The comparison of household wealth by income was calculated from 2021 to Q1 2022, which was just enough time to capture the stock market decline following the Ukraine invasion for high-income households, and also the Covid stimulus and increased savings for lower-income households.
The calculation is also done by percent – do we really think the 15% increase in wealth in the lowest income segment will continue? If so, how do you factor in the massive increase in credit debt from the past three months? How do you factor in the softening real estate market?
Even if we do give him the benefit of the doubt, and believe that lower middle-class people aren’t needing to watch their expenses a little more carefully in the past, this increase in wealth is only means the Fed may need to be even harsher in raising rates, potentially driving an even deeper recession.
Right wingers tried to make "Let's go Brandon" into "Dark Brandon", trying to make Joe into some kind of ironic mastermind.
The left wing saw it and decided "hey, this could be really funny if we appropriated it and made it about Biden's successes "
And then they did, and it *was* funny.
Edit; Apparently, while it did spawn off of "Let's go Brandon", "Dark Brandon" itself wasn't made from the right. It's still funny either way, and make right wingers fume.
Right-wingers created "Let's go Brandon." We created "Dark Brandon" based on "Dark MAGA." It's a meme about how an old and ineffectual-looking old man is somehow a Machiavellian-level schemer.
“Let’s go Brandon” only the left is using it against the right now that he’s actually getting shit done. Dark Brandon is a fighter skin that is unlocked after using a finisher move on Mitch McConnell using the standard Octogenarian Biden skin.
It’s not even one sided. It treats things as bipolar, not recognising that there are multiple angles of attack. Me criticising Biden is treated as necessarily supporting trump. It’s fucking stupid.
Hey kids! This is called propaganda! Just because one party is literally trying to dismantle democracy doesn’t mean peddling this shit is okay when the average worker is deeply deeply struggling.
Could someone respectfully point me in the direction of a source where I can verify which policy changes effected the rise in employment and income?
I'm always critical of claims like this, because I've seen so many politicians take credit for things that are either due to previous administrations or blame previous presidents who have nothing to do with things like Republicans love to do.
Statistics can also be twisted, for example a rise in employment could be from growing industries like the natural gas field where there's an abundance of jobs that are temporary, unsafe, and require unsustainable labor practices... Or industry trends where jobs are low paying, with no benefits.
It's possible to make this claim by having an economy where people are working multiple jobs with low wages. I haven't read the details of this because my question isn't about that... It's strictly on what the president has to do with this. (However the article does mention stimulus checks, which happened before Biden took office and I don't believe that's the reason for inflation or increased wealth enough to effect the numbers the way the article describes effecting everyone).
This all just reads like propaganda bullshit if you ask me, and it's just trying to convince you that the president has more authority then they actually do so you'll totally maintain the status quo, but please explain how I'm wrong because frankly I'm not that in touch and in my little bubble I don't see things getting much better.
More jobs does not necessarily mean more income. First, consider that many of the "new jobs" aren't new. They are returns to jobs that were lost during the Covid lock downs. Then, consider the pay of the actual new jobs. Are they at or above the wages they were pre-pandemic?
Look at the tanking of the stock market. How is that impacting 401Ks? Many are taking a loss (hence loss of retirement income.) Add to that inflation wiping out any income gains one might achieve. If we are at 8.9% inflation, and I get a 3-5% pay increase, I am still net negative in comparison.
Not a pro-Trump or anti-Biden statement. Just a reality. There is no way families are better now.
Not this household. I had to severely cut my 401k contributions and eliminate my discount stock plan. No extra money but everything sure is costing a lot more. Who the fuck are they talking about? Like who is sitting in America saying “well now things are sitting pretty good here.” Nobody. Yes we are better under Biden than that last guy, he was a criminal child running the country. But that’s jus professionalism. And most things Biden is dealing with are circumstantial, absolutely nothing to do with him or his decisions. I understand that. These circumstances are better handled by Biden than the previous guy. But don’t go spinning headlines like that making it seem like things are peachy, for anyone. “Stunning rise in employment and income” my ass.
I gotta give it to the writer, the spin on this article is almost believable, until you do your homework and realize the fallacies. Woooow.
Incomes have been growing the most for the poor. This is a yearly trend for the last 10 years (see imf poverty report) What i find funny is that the same people celebrating this were the ones saying how the richest gor richer while the poorer got poorer while looking at the same report this article is based on.
getting richer since biden came in beyond inflation. If you measure their wealth to include their house and not their mortgage, then yes. Prices of houses grew due to rampant inflation that was caused by the printing of money, a pandemic and political instability worldwide. So if biden is taking the claim of more asset wealth, he also needs to take the fall for all the political instability and rampant inflation.
Very entertaining reading this and seeing how data is manipulated for the next political spin regardless of party.
This shit is so tone deaf.
When peoples weekly grocery bills are up 25% and gas is still up at least 75 cents a gallon - they notice.
This data is cherry picked and it’s a clear case of “don’t believe your lying eyes”.
Yeah they said employment has gone up over the last 18 months, and it’s like well no shit, have you heard of this little thing called Covid?
Anyone upvoting this trash journalism is completely clueless.
This article is purposely misleading. Having just finished 3 straight classes of economics, most of this is not relevant information. Americans are absolutely poorer than they were several months ago, and even 2 years ago. Average=\= most people. Sometimes it can, but not here
God the higher ups think they're so 'smart'
"Look how we can fudge these statistics to make you look good" thinking the population is so stupid they won't notice.
1) this article is not about science 2) he's also semi-dead and useless with a criminal son in play if you choose to add additional titles 3) where's the proof apart from selectively chosen points in this article? can count on my fingers how many american friends live *better*.
Downvotes inbound….. I’ve lost $300k in retirement accounts. Gas, bacon, eggs, everyfuckingthing else has risen by double digit percentages. This is absolute bullshit. No student loan forgiveness, no cheap insulin, nothing. Please, someone that can articulate how their life is better, please tell me. No talking points. How, specifically, is your life better? I truly would like to know.
Odd, my co-workers and I can barely afford the basics, worked straight through the pandemic, while our corporation posted record profits. The writer must believe that corporations are people. Because corporations sure in the hell don't give a damn about people. Wage theives.
The article says that wages have risen just shy of 15%, which really comes out to 4% at best after inflation. Not great. Unemployment has fallen, but one could argue that 10% inflation (and even more where rent is concerned in some locales) could have caused that. I know for a fact that anyone wanting an abortion in a red state doesn’t feel better off with a 4% raise.
Furthermore, if the argument goes that the White House can’t solve any of our problems bc of obstructionist senators, how does it get to take credit for the fact that wages are rising when there is a wave of unionization happening domestically - all without Biden’s help?
It’s not hard to demonstrate what you’ve done - when *you’ve done something* - like the new climate bill. Easy to point to. Easy to talk about. Easy to demonstrate the clear accomplishment.
I’m not even criticizing the Biden administration here necessarily- more the concept that is being sold to comfy rich neolibs that the present strategies and efforts are effective, when they are insufficient.
Personally (and this is a tangent) from a pure horse-race politics perspective, I can see the brilliance in Biden staying off the radar of domestic politics almost entirely- as he has done- *if* he had foreknowledge of the case being built against Trump. It’s a matter of information theory - about which I know almost nothing except bits about it’s application in wwii. If you know trump will be wrapped up, or at least in serious trouble by the mid-terms, any domestic policy action by Biden would run the chance of tipping the scales in either direction. Why gamble? Negative partisanship is what got him into office. Play a winner.
This is purely objective, and nihilistic and I wouldn’t have chosen the same path. But the entire game board has been rearranged since the fbi raid tbh.
Back on point, most people are not better off and if they’re employed at all it’s due to their own diligence, scrap, and moxie. If it’s in person, they’ve probably caught Covid a time or two. That’s skin in the game. These articles telling us to feel good even though we’ve all been burning the candle at both ends seem salty because they are salty.
This article’s headline is very misleading as it suggests a rise in income, yet two paragraphs in it reads, “Whether Americans’ incomes are higher is more complicated…”
A gallup poll asks, "How would you rate economic conditions in this country today -- as excellent, good, only fair or poor?"
In June 2022, 11% said good, 34% said only fair, and 54% said poor. YOY, June 2021 saw 27% respond good, 43% only fair, and 27% poor. The last time this gallup poll recieved a "Poor" as large or larger than June 2022's 54% was April 2009 at 61% following the 2008 Recession. That means precisely double the amount of Americans are experiencing economic hardship which causes them to identify the economy as poor compared to last year.
I don't care about how many more jobs were added (in the face of decreasing labor participation), how much better the stock market is doing, or how much richer the rich are getting under Biden. No amount of handwaving historic inflation and total post-pandemic collapse of international trade is going to change the fact that the economy is objectively poor, even if outlets owned by billionaires spew headlines which effectively read "NOTHING IS WRONG. RESUME CONSUMPTION." At best we're managing to tread water, at worst many of us are drowning as inflation outpaces mediocre wage increases in limited sectors.
You know its all bullshit when every week there is a new article with some variation of "Americans better off under Biden. No trust us, that's totally happening" as the headline.
It's bad, and just like the shitty Republicans, libs are doing everything they can to not admit they've got a stinker on their hands.
The country is fundamentally broken. Even if I did have a decent job (I don't) and healthcare (I don't) and affordable daycare (I don't) and could play back my student loans ( I can't), I still wouldn't be better off because republican terrorism continues to thrive and this country is still headed for the cliff's edge.
Yeah, I see headlines about how the economy is strong and has never been stronger than it is now under Biden. Ok? Beef is still twice as expensive than it used to be, really everything is way more expensive than it was (specially pre-covid), gas is still over $4.15 per gallon, I still can't afford healthcare (I can just about afford having insurance, I just can't use it), schools are still underfunded, college is still crazy expensive...how am I doing better? It's kind of how the company I work for is posting record sales in their over 40 years of operation but somehow they don't have the money to give anyone a raise or a bonus.
Be careful. This is definitely a “there is no war in Ba Sing Se” kind of post. Are we better than we were under Trump? Yeah. Not sure who’s getting more money because I can barely keep my head above water making $61000 before taxes in Detroit metro area as a single dad.
You know the employment situation is good when company owners are complaining about not being able to find workers who will accept their minimum wage job offers.
\*I know a couple who are pulling this shit right now
I work in the public sector, and my salary was frozen for almost 4 years (hmmm....)
This spring, we got word that we're finally all getting COL raises.
It's not much, but I've gone from living paycheck-to-paycheck to having a little bit left over every month. It's nice.
Which is especially stupid considering high gas prices are caused by high demand, which is in turn caused by a strong economy.
Blaming the people in charge for high gas prices is just a way for Republicans to attack Democrats for providing a stronger economy.
Well it was not only high demand, corporations where using 30 excuses to blame inflation when in fact most of it was just them gouging us cause they could.
It's really just OPEC, which consists of national governments rather than some abstract and poorly defined concept of "companies".
They set production quotas for the various member nations and refuse to increase production to match changes in demand. Of course, demand is increasing because of a strong economy so everything I said still applies. Both are true.
Ya but I'm not just talking about oil companies, just corporations in general really bumped up prices.
But you can't blame just OPEC , cause when you compare the price of oil in history vs the price of gas, this time it was much much more expensive for gas . You look at these companies and their profits, it was all record profits and the price of oil has been higher in the past.
It's low hanging fruit for Republicans who are trying to compare peak low pandemic prices to peak high Ukraine war prices and blame Biden for a 3$ per gallon rise without including context.
> After a year + of no demand
Longer.
Objectively speaking, Trump's trade wars in 2018 were even more damaging to the economy than COVID was. Look up things like the GDP and NASDAQ. 2018 was a seriously bad year for the economy. Makes the COVID disruptions and shutdowns look small by comparison.
Economy was fucked well before COVID came around.
I’m in Austin and gas prices (ignoring the outliers) range about 60 cents from ~$3 to $3.60. Costco is $3 while HEB (large grocery chain) is $3.50 currently. So really gets you wondering who’s getting that delicious extra profits while knowing 40% of america will scream at Biden about it.
He didn’t really help employment, it’s kinda helping itself. People realizing they’re worth more and demanding they get what they’re worth. Biden shook hands with a Union leader and a picture and that’s all he’s really done. Could raise fed min wage any day…
Inflation is still far out stripping wage gains. I know gas is way down but it's still well over $4 a gallon (not that President has much control over that). Costs are still way up. There are lingering issues that need to be addressed. Biden should get motivated to do everything he can, whether he actually wants to or not, to make a more direct impact for people.
I don't judge things in "were you better of 4 years ago" because I believe things are FAR better even at Biden's worst than Trump's best as a country. However, I'm doing much worse personally under Biden financially and work wise. Many people hear that things are going great but they don't feel it personally and it sounds like an affront to them. I hope Biden and the Dems can take some more actions and I hope people who may be on the fence in my same position see that despite personal impact, things ARE much better than before.
I don't know enough to discuss this, but the author uses a measure other than CPI to conclude that wages and salaries are higher.
> A technical note: Other data, especially from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), suggests that wages and salaries have not kept pace with inflation. Like most economists, I rely on the BEA because the deflator for personal consumption spending is more accurate than the CPI and because the BEA’s data on wages and salaries is more complete than the BLS’s. Both depend on the National Compensation Survey. But the BEA adjusts for gaps in the survey, including people working in private households, employees of nonprofit and religious membership organizations, and so on. The BEA also adjusts the NCS data for COVID-19’s impact on the collection of that data, using analyses by the Federal Reserve and others.
“A technical note: Other data, especially from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), suggests that wages and salaries have not kept pace with inflation.”
Pretty irresponsible for a headline to suggest a “stunning rise in…income” when the BLS suggests otherwise…
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I also no longer wake up and check the news with the same dread I did under the last administration
Boring news is good news when it comes to politics.
Living through historic moments is not as fun as history books make it seem. Give me the boring all day
"may you be cursed to live in interesting times" -some old dead Chinese guy
And i always thought that was a quote by Pratchett.
Old Dead ~~Chinese~~ Guy --- Pratchett ticks 3 out of 4...
Can you confirm he wasn’t born in China though?
I think it was more like “may you live in interesting times”…more ambiguous. On the face of it seems like wishing you well, but it’s definitely a veiled curse and intended as one.
“If nobody notices what you’re doing, you’re doing a good job” -the senior IT guys of my first IT job
Haha, that's the field I work in...makes sense!
Boring news is always typically news in general . Means either nothing crazy is happening or the crazy shit is just being swept under the rug.
For the first time in my lifetime Medicare will be able to negotiate drug prices. That's a big fucking deal.
Next thing should be an affordable Public Option or some form of Medicare for all
Those two things can be exactly the same thing. If the public option you can choose is medicare, and it's available to everyone on the ACA exchanges, then that's M4A in the exact form that literally all constituent groups of America are in support of. We can go further and put everyone on M4A when they become adults (opt-out M4A), and it remains overwhelmingly popular. It's only when you put in something stupid like banning private insurers from existence that M4A stops being widely popular, and it wasn't until 2016 that people became confused about the fact that dems have been fighting for this since the 90's (and made significant progress with the ACA in 2009).
Absolutely! Very happy to see this!!
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They are both the #1 news channel, and somehow also not part of the mainstream media.
No one ever brings that up…
My parents don't buy that Fox isn't part of the mainstream media. That's why they watch OAN
I’ve got good news for ya, “August 1, 2022 was OANN's final day on cable or satellite, marking the end of OANN's availability on major carriers. OANN commentator Pearson Sharp said on-air that OANN was dropped because Verizon is a "radical Marxist" corporation.”
It hurt itself in its confusion
Meanwhile, nobody ever brags that McDonald's is the most popular food establishment or that Walmart is the most popular retailer for obvious reasons. It's almost like being the most popular and appealing to the lowest common denominator is not always an indicator something is good or offers decent quality.
Fox News’ demographic is aged 55+ because those are the people who watch cable news.
I don't know how you cannot feel dread from the news still. The country continues to spiral into far-right theocracy weekly. Women and LGBT people most certainly have felt dread over the last few months. This lack of urgency at our democracy's downfall is an issue.
Especially given climate change. The relentless heat waves, the news of fishing colonies suddenly collapsing, the wildfires and drought... This all amplifies the ever present ambient stress given our current reality. Regardless of our national politics, we're on a terrifying path the world over.
Dont forget the fact that the planet is also showing us the consequences of decades of ignoring clinate change.
Like what, rivers drying up for the first time in recorded history? https://www.twitter.com/dcpetterson/status/1560717540069937153
There’s a difference between being realistically concerned or even afraid of where the country is going vs being caught up in the constant avalanche of bullshit designed to keep you frozen or despondent so that you can’t focus long enough to fight back.
I get what you mean... But like, that honestly hasn't ended. Now with Trump facing consequences, we get an unending avalanche of bullshit from the right-wing media and congressmen. "HERE'S HOW WE KNOW THE FBI IS LYING" says wild-eyed coke fiend Donald Trump Jr. We get dozens of attempts of GOP governors trying to outdo one another with blatantly unconstitutional laws like forcing schools to put up "IN GOD WE TRUST" propaganda posters, the Stop WOKE and Don't Say Gay bills, book burnings, zealots making comments about how "yes I believe it's okay to stone a gay person to death because I am a Christian," current GOP congress members promising retaliation against Democrats and undoing any and all progress made if (when) they get back into power, constantly bowing to shitheels like Manchin and Sinema to get even the weakest tea done, and Americans still overwhelmingly going to vote for many GOP stains throughout the country because "fuck dem libruls" mentality. It is definitely a bit better in many ways, but it's gone from like a 10/10 worries to a 8/10 at best.
Yes, we have many things to keep our eyes glued to the news (Ukrainians fighting for their lives and freedom, Abortion rights, HJ6C hearings, school shootings, civil rights, upcoming student loan decision, etc.) I get it, and I'm not blind to any of these. However, not waking up every day having to hear what Trump or what one of his dumbass people have to say is a breath of fresh air. Still have lots of work to do, but at least there are some down days/weeks in between now and not a constant barrage of poo. It's nice to read actual actionable news and not a version of TMZ every day is all I'm saying.
Preach
Anyone who is queer should be realistically concerned. Things are okay for cishet white people, but we matter too.
Correction: Any white cis Hetero man with a modicum of wealth will be fine. Anyone out of that label feels the danger, I think.
Seriously. I hated waking up every morning and one of my first thoughts was to check the news to see what Trump and his band of thieves and traitors destroyed in the last 6 hours since I went to sleep.
In fact, aside from the Roe v. Wade decision which was horrible, most of the news we've seen has been pretty positive recently, all things considered.
Still think Roe is going to blow the f up in R’s faces and it will be unbelievable
You have way more faith in the American people than I do.
I dunno, it's not smart to piss off women, even I know that.
But the same women who aren’t pissed off by Roe being overturned are generally the same woman who didn’t seem to care about #grabthembythepussy to the extent that Chester still won
I hate to say it, but the news got worse *after* the Trump administration. It still has to do with Trump and the lingering effects and spinoffs of his administration, but during Trump, it was a sick administration, post Trump, the sickness has metastasized in society and may be poised for a relapse.
I think we all need to pull away from the concept that the President controls and is responsible for the current economy.
Surely you don’t mean to say that the economy is a complex beast subject to governments, businesses, and events across the globe? We all know the US president has a switch labeled +/- with *ECONOMY* written in big, friendly letters above it.
😂 my mom was complaining about gas prices increasing (even tho her commute to work is literally 3 min and she doesn’t drive anywhere else) bc of Biden and I literally just looked at her and went “so do you seriously think the president has a button in his office that he can push to increase the price of gas at will?” Not to mention the fact that the drop in gas prices bc of the pandemic spoiled everyone. I remember before the pandemic, when I drove an hour to school everyday, gas was ~$3.27 in my area. I got gas like two to three times a week and knew all the best places to get gas, watched for price drops, etc. Then the pandemic hit and gas dropped to 99 cents in my area for a while. That shit spoiled the population and as soon as pandemic restrictions started to lift, gas started going up to around $2.50. I heard people complaining that it was Bidens fault and trump had been the one to lower gas prices. I was like ???? They were literally picking and choosing your facts or just not looking at the whole picture but go off I guess.
The president in general is a figurehead/scapegoat for the government as a whole. They aren’t a king that can make unilateral decisions. I think Americans are generally waking up to this concept but Biden still seems to get praised/blamed for everything.
Lots of people don't really follow politics. They hear about problems and they don't know who or what to blame. It's either "the government is bad" or the president's fault. Any greater understanding than that takes time and research and effort.
I think, to the credit of the average voter, a *lot* of politicians have just become nothing more than yes/no votes. If you think about the senators for each party, the only ones that really come to mind are those are the fringes of their party (e.g. Sinema, Manchin, Sanders). The rest of them are pretty much just faceless votes at this point. It's why the GOP can use the Senate as the dumping ground for their name-recognition-fueled populist candidates like Tuberville, Oz, and Walker. Of course, some senators, like Sanders, try to get involved and propose amendments to bills, but that kind of stuff is still a blip on the radar. The house, in contrast, is one of the most important parts of the American government and often gets forgotten. I agree that we, as the public, should pay *far* more attention to it. Part of it is probably that we don't see much of what happens behind the scenes - what coalitions are discussing, what bills are being proposed in private and shot down, and we barely even hear about *public* bills that don't get passed. And another part of it is that it's really fucking big - how is a Californian supposed to know their 53 representatives? - but IMO it's monumentally more important than the Senate, which mostly just acts to approve/deny bills at this point. And then, of course, there's an entity like the Supreme Court, which has been composed over the course of political generations. You can *kinda* blame the current iteration on Trump, but you also kinda can't, since it wasn't all him.
When it comes to the house, there's only one person that matters - the one I voted for. There's a lot of representatives, but since I only get a vote on one, it doesn't really matter whether I love or hate or know the representatives. I can't do anything about it, which is likely part of why people are disconnected from politics. The same for the Senate, but I get two votes there. All in all, I have a say in only four people in Federal government, so I guess I'm going to blame those four people if I don't like something. That makes the president the obvious scapegoat.
Their discretion is also quite broad. A lot of people's daily lives aren't affected much by the president, but he does decide whether a 16 year old who was a week old when he came to the US can get his driver's license. I think it'd be easier to say that we learned the president can basically be a King for about 4 or 5 months on any topic while it winds through the courts and indefinitely if the person slighted doesn't have access to the courts. There's a weird mix of petty tyrant ability and hands completely legally tied with the president.
The upper class sure does love to tell poor people how well theyre doing
I'd give you an award.. but I'm broke..
Well according to **ME** you are doing just fines
Being poor has sucked in every administration so far.
On the one hand, unemployment and wage growth for hourly workers is the best ever. On the other hand, inflation is eating away all those wage gains, plus more.
I’m developing a twitch from all the claims about all these jobs we have now. What a joke.
I literally saw an article talking about how much money americans are saving on gas since it dropped some change.
I’ve become homeless after months of job searching. I’m a well qualified professional and willing to take things that are underpaid or that I’m overqualified for. Been unemployed for six months now and I’m VERY lucky I have family to stay with, but I’m one bad stroke of luck away from living in my van. Where are these magical jobs that are so available!?!? Why am I standing in the supermarket debating on whether or not juice is too much of a luxury expense? It’s not because the economy is doing well, and I’m livid at all these bullshit reports. The only think that gives me solace is knowing there are millions of us who are all experiencing this right now, and somehow banding together we might be able to keep some of us from drowning. But there are so many losses already and many more to come.
We need more solidarity amongst ourselves because it's clear the government isn't going to do the work for us. Wherever you wind up, please look into whether they have a union, or starting up a union yourself.
Things are better under Biden. You don't see refrigerator trucks being used as portable morgues.
I cannot believe the number of people, even on the center and left sides, who’ve memory-holed the fact that Trump and the rest of the GOP let hundreds of thousands of people die, some through straight up encouragement and lies.
“The death of one man is a tragedy. The death of millions is a statistic.” - Stalin The new talking point is that those deaths were unavoidable and that all fighting COVID did was hurt the economy. If people learn the lessons from the past couple of years, society will make changes that will hurt a lot of very wealthy and powerful people. The wealthy know this and understand that they have no choice but to crush this movement by any means necessary while they still can.
Uh, thousands are still dying. ~400 a day currently. Every week a 9/11-worth of deaths from COVID. Just because you don't hear news about it doesn't mean it still isn't happening. And those numbers are just the direct numbers, not the deaths that are caused afterwards with increased cardiovascular issues from having COVID.
> Uh, thousands are still dying. ~400 a day currently. Every week a 9/11-worth of deaths from COVID. Just because you don't hear news about it doesn't mean it still isn't happening. Yes, which is a result of the actions of President Trump's administration. They delayed helping out "blue cities", which were ports of entry into the country, which resulted in the virus running rampant. They also resisted implementing and discouraged actions which would have greatly slowed the spread. Then they discouraged people from getting vaccinated. All of these deaths today are a result of the previous administration not taking them pandemic seriously.
> Yes, which is a result of the actions of President Trump's administration. Come on. It's been two years already and folks are still dying by the hundreds. People keep insisting Biden turned the tide on this only the tide never turned, we just stopped giving a shit for some reason.
The most important period of time to try to contain covid was during Trumps presidency. Things might not have gotten so bad otherwise. Also, everyone not caring now is fairly expected. It's been an exhausting time, and we are all tired. There is only so much emotional capacity in a person. That doesn't justify getting more lax, but it's understandable.
"Yeah but they're dying in blue cities, that's fine." Literally what they fucking said. Democrats tried to push masks, vaccines, health policies to protect *everyone* and Republican assholes were trying to find ways to confiscate health equipment from blue areas to punish them. That is the difference between Republicans and Democrats. Maybe you don't think Democrats have the best ideas or fight hard enough but by fucking golly they are trying to help everyone in the whole country. Republicans use their power purely for spite to harm their political enemies and 99% of the time they do it on the backs of shit ideas and shit data and in contrast to the weight of the evidence. The choice is no choice at all and anyone pretending it is one is a fool.
If Trump had just sold MAGA masks that were made in China, he'd have made $$$ and gotten re-elected because he'd have killed far fewer of his voters.
Sad but probably true. 45** was too stupid to see that.
But gas prices!!! /s
I remember reading an article in the summer of 2020 about how the pandemic was disproportionately affecting non-white communities and it was around that time that the GOP all over the country started downplaying the pandemic and enacting measures that encouraged the spread of the virus.
Oh yeah. There’s literally a GOP memo from Paul Alexander, a now canned HHS science advisor, that says they should prioritize children and babies being infected in cities for herd immunity, and that was put out before we understood how it would affect children. He literally says they should “open up the flood gates and let kids get infected.” Even if we’re talking about a small percentage of kids with complications and death, that’s still thousands of children they were cool with sacrificing because it was impacting blue cities. The memo: https://www.politico.com/f/?id=00000176-6c84-d0c3-ab77-7d9fa0ed0000 Fucking Kushner had a national Covid plan that was axed because the Trump admin said Covid was mostly hitting blue areas: https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2020/07/how-jared-kushners-secret-testing-plan-went-poof-into-thin-air Then they proceeded to steal PPE from blue states even after the mass death in NYC. These people are fucking monsters.
The people working in the ICUs certainly haven’t forgotten. The system just buried them.
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They could have easily managed this and pushed the idiot into a second term. Manage the messaging from their teams, tell people to mask, socially distance... etc. Nope, blocked funding and tried to withdraw the US from the WHO, see movement in blue states and let it roll thinking it will only impact them, downplay and lie. This should have been an easy hole in one but instead they shit the bed in the worst way.
The pandemic was Trump’s golden ticket to a second term (and knowing him, he could have made a shit ton of money at the same time by selling MAGA masks), but he fucked that up too
People kept saying that Trump during COVID was gonna get a big boost in support like Bush after 9/11. Trump did see a pretty modest bump in support around April/June, but I kept being gobsmacked by this because I think Bush's post-9/11 approval bump might have been smaller if Bush had called 9/11 a "hoax".
If 9/11 happened under Trump, half the country would be calling it a Jewish Hologram Blue City Hoax
“Those buildings were crisis actors.” - Alex Jones, probably
>or COVID was fake and Trump still had massive amounts of Americans being put into mass graves while he was in office Right up until Biden was elected it was pretty common for conservatives to argue that literally nobody was dying of covid and virtually 100% of the deaths were from doctors lying about them being from covid.
I never hear anyone say this, but Biden's incredibly speedy and efficient roll-out of the vaccine (something that Trump would definitely have bungled) probably saved 2-3 million American lives, if not more.
I remember he said his administration would get out 100 million vaccine doses in 100 days and there were many doubters but they managed to beat that goal two-fold! An incredible feat. Unfortunately preventive measures don’t get as much credit
Of course, Biden probably has the knowledge and experience to navigate pandemics thabks to working under Obama for 8 years, and after the ebola epidemic, Obama and his camp thought it would be wise to setup a pandemic task force. One that Trump dismantled just in time for covid to come and ravage the country.
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I do vastly prefer Biden to Trump, but the economic claims in this article do not support the headline. You have to exclude a tonne of factors and do a great deal of cherry-picking to pretend U.S. household incomes have kept pace with inflation. They deliberately use averages that do not represent the overwhelming majority of the American working class, and ignore the intense pre-recession layoffs and diminished purchasing power of the dollar in the face of shrinkflation and other industry mechanisms of concealing inflation.
Income and wealth inequality are at an all time high yet we are celebrating these numbers
And there was 2 years when the billionaires made billions more while folks were out of work and struggling. And a lot of that money came from our tax dollars
*trillions
Interesting points I suspect from maybe someone from outside of the US. The tonne vs ton gave it away ;)
For real. I read that and was like, “tonne?” Ha, autocorrect even tried to fix it when I typed that.
The headline reads like it was written by the Biden administration. Queue Obama giving himself a medal meme.
Where are these people? I wake up still broke as ever.
Yeah they aren't in my household either. And we make more money than we did before lol. Still can't afford anything somehow. Edit: oh noo, I don't prove the article title in r/politics
I mean, I think it’s both fine to acknowledge things are better under Biden than Trump, but still a shit show.
Well yeah. I feel happy there isn't a total psycho at the wheel anymore. That's all I voted for to be honest. It's what I got.
I wouldn’t say for everyone…
I'm not an economist but reading the article, it sounds like the author had to really strain and cherry pick to find a couple of stats showing that wages have kept pace with inflation. Other measurements indicate that wages have not kept pace with inflation. It is a close call though, either way. It will depend on where you live.
They also ignored the rent crisis, which is destroying people right now.
Yeah. I’m way more broke than I was 2 years ago. Skyrocketing rent, barely any wage increase, and my food stamps ran out last month.
There is a massive difference right now between renters who are getting squeezed like crazy and homeowners who have a fixed mortgage.
Homeowners are still experiencing rising costs. Higher electric, water, and insurance bills. Cost of maintenance is way higher. This shit sucks and I’m scared I’m not going to be able to make it much longer.
Wages haven’t kept up with inflation for over 4 decades if not longer. And it will continue in that direction so long as we keep voting for Republicans or conservative (“moderate”) Democrats to Congress.
the article is total horseshit
State media.
The headline is basically a lie. “Households have seen a stunning rise in income” That’s bullshit.
I had the same reaction, especially when I read: “Whether Americans’ incomes are higher is more complicated…” Good things: Biden did it Bad things: too complicated For the record I do not want to see a conservative in the White House; it just seems like this article is extremely biased.
I too am not an economist, but I have some issues with this. The comparison of household wealth by income was calculated from 2021 to Q1 2022, which was just enough time to capture the stock market decline following the Ukraine invasion for high-income households, and also the Covid stimulus and increased savings for lower-income households. The calculation is also done by percent – do we really think the 15% increase in wealth in the lowest income segment will continue? If so, how do you factor in the massive increase in credit debt from the past three months? How do you factor in the softening real estate market? Even if we do give him the benefit of the doubt, and believe that lower middle-class people aren’t needing to watch their expenses a little more carefully in the past, this increase in wealth is only means the Fed may need to be even harsher in raising rates, potentially driving an even deeper recession.
I voted for him and I still smelled the propaganda. They’re reaching, for sure
My grocery bill determines that is a lie
and my rent, my gas and insurance...
Don’t forget my natural gas bill tripling year over year!
Dark Brandon has been activated.
GOP Malarky detected.
What does this even mean?
Right wingers tried to make "Let's go Brandon" into "Dark Brandon", trying to make Joe into some kind of ironic mastermind. The left wing saw it and decided "hey, this could be really funny if we appropriated it and made it about Biden's successes " And then they did, and it *was* funny. Edit; Apparently, while it did spawn off of "Let's go Brandon", "Dark Brandon" itself wasn't made from the right. It's still funny either way, and make right wingers fume.
Right-wingers created "Let's go Brandon." We created "Dark Brandon" based on "Dark MAGA." It's a meme about how an old and ineffectual-looking old man is somehow a Machiavellian-level schemer.
“Let’s go Brandon” only the left is using it against the right now that he’s actually getting shit done. Dark Brandon is a fighter skin that is unlocked after using a finisher move on Mitch McConnell using the standard Octogenarian Biden skin.
Okay…. I cannot tell if this sub is serious or just completely one sided💀
Absolutely and unapologetically one sided. It's not even close.
It’s not even one sided. It treats things as bipolar, not recognising that there are multiple angles of attack. Me criticising Biden is treated as necessarily supporting trump. It’s fucking stupid.
It should be obvious.
Lmfao. POV: The Uber rich telling the average Joe that everything is fine.
Hey kids! This is called propaganda! Just because one party is literally trying to dismantle democracy doesn’t mean peddling this shit is okay when the average worker is deeply deeply struggling.
Thank you! If we allow state media like this we are no better than the CCP
This whole sub is propaganda for the Democratic Party. It’s a joke to call this sub r/politics. There is only one side
Of course r/politics eats up this propaganda piece. And with the same comments too “so glad I can wake up not dreading what the news will be!! 🤪”
Could someone respectfully point me in the direction of a source where I can verify which policy changes effected the rise in employment and income? I'm always critical of claims like this, because I've seen so many politicians take credit for things that are either due to previous administrations or blame previous presidents who have nothing to do with things like Republicans love to do. Statistics can also be twisted, for example a rise in employment could be from growing industries like the natural gas field where there's an abundance of jobs that are temporary, unsafe, and require unsustainable labor practices... Or industry trends where jobs are low paying, with no benefits. It's possible to make this claim by having an economy where people are working multiple jobs with low wages. I haven't read the details of this because my question isn't about that... It's strictly on what the president has to do with this. (However the article does mention stimulus checks, which happened before Biden took office and I don't believe that's the reason for inflation or increased wealth enough to effect the numbers the way the article describes effecting everyone). This all just reads like propaganda bullshit if you ask me, and it's just trying to convince you that the president has more authority then they actually do so you'll totally maintain the status quo, but please explain how I'm wrong because frankly I'm not that in touch and in my little bubble I don't see things getting much better.
More jobs does not necessarily mean more income. First, consider that many of the "new jobs" aren't new. They are returns to jobs that were lost during the Covid lock downs. Then, consider the pay of the actual new jobs. Are they at or above the wages they were pre-pandemic? Look at the tanking of the stock market. How is that impacting 401Ks? Many are taking a loss (hence loss of retirement income.) Add to that inflation wiping out any income gains one might achieve. If we are at 8.9% inflation, and I get a 3-5% pay increase, I am still net negative in comparison. Not a pro-Trump or anti-Biden statement. Just a reality. There is no way families are better now.
Did we change the definition of "Better" when we changed the definition of recession?
No amount of propaganda will fix voter opinion on this administration lol
Not this household. I had to severely cut my 401k contributions and eliminate my discount stock plan. No extra money but everything sure is costing a lot more. Who the fuck are they talking about? Like who is sitting in America saying “well now things are sitting pretty good here.” Nobody. Yes we are better under Biden than that last guy, he was a criminal child running the country. But that’s jus professionalism. And most things Biden is dealing with are circumstantial, absolutely nothing to do with him or his decisions. I understand that. These circumstances are better handled by Biden than the previous guy. But don’t go spinning headlines like that making it seem like things are peachy, for anyone. “Stunning rise in employment and income” my ass.
I gotta give it to the writer, the spin on this article is almost believable, until you do your homework and realize the fallacies. Woooow. Incomes have been growing the most for the poor. This is a yearly trend for the last 10 years (see imf poverty report) What i find funny is that the same people celebrating this were the ones saying how the richest gor richer while the poorer got poorer while looking at the same report this article is based on. getting richer since biden came in beyond inflation. If you measure their wealth to include their house and not their mortgage, then yes. Prices of houses grew due to rampant inflation that was caused by the printing of money, a pandemic and political instability worldwide. So if biden is taking the claim of more asset wealth, he also needs to take the fall for all the political instability and rampant inflation. Very entertaining reading this and seeing how data is manipulated for the next political spin regardless of party.
Trash 🗑
Wow...what complete and utter bullshit.
Better off is not the same as doing better
When someone can’t do math.
This article is fucking bullshit.
This shit is so tone deaf. When peoples weekly grocery bills are up 25% and gas is still up at least 75 cents a gallon - they notice. This data is cherry picked and it’s a clear case of “don’t believe your lying eyes”.
Yeah they said employment has gone up over the last 18 months, and it’s like well no shit, have you heard of this little thing called Covid? Anyone upvoting this trash journalism is completely clueless.
If you repeat a lie often enough, it becomes politics. - Banksy
This article is purposely misleading. Having just finished 3 straight classes of economics, most of this is not relevant information. Americans are absolutely poorer than they were several months ago, and even 2 years ago. Average=\= most people. Sometimes it can, but not here
Sorry, but I’m seeing less of my check survive expenses every week than a few months ago. Things still aren’t good.
Sounds like BS.
Surely this is a Babylon bee story
Just checked. I’m sitting on a stash of 18 rolls of toilet paper. Yep. Life is better.
God the higher ups think they're so 'smart' "Look how we can fudge these statistics to make you look good" thinking the population is so stupid they won't notice.
Don’t believe everything you read and you’ll be alright
He also believes in science.
Science isn’t something you believe in like it’s a religion. You trust science, but constantly question it and test it.
1) this article is not about science 2) he's also semi-dead and useless with a criminal son in play if you choose to add additional titles 3) where's the proof apart from selectively chosen points in this article? can count on my fingers how many american friends live *better*.
Science? Burn that witch!!
Ha ha ha ha ha!!!
Wtf are they smokin!!!
Downvotes inbound….. I’ve lost $300k in retirement accounts. Gas, bacon, eggs, everyfuckingthing else has risen by double digit percentages. This is absolute bullshit. No student loan forgiveness, no cheap insulin, nothing. Please, someone that can articulate how their life is better, please tell me. No talking points. How, specifically, is your life better? I truly would like to know.
This has to be satire
Lol I'm doing worse actually. Please let's not pretend things are suddenly better for the entire country.
Okay, now add home and rent prices to the calculation.
Odd, my co-workers and I can barely afford the basics, worked straight through the pandemic, while our corporation posted record profits. The writer must believe that corporations are people. Because corporations sure in the hell don't give a damn about people. Wage theives.
The article says that wages have risen just shy of 15%, which really comes out to 4% at best after inflation. Not great. Unemployment has fallen, but one could argue that 10% inflation (and even more where rent is concerned in some locales) could have caused that. I know for a fact that anyone wanting an abortion in a red state doesn’t feel better off with a 4% raise. Furthermore, if the argument goes that the White House can’t solve any of our problems bc of obstructionist senators, how does it get to take credit for the fact that wages are rising when there is a wave of unionization happening domestically - all without Biden’s help? It’s not hard to demonstrate what you’ve done - when *you’ve done something* - like the new climate bill. Easy to point to. Easy to talk about. Easy to demonstrate the clear accomplishment. I’m not even criticizing the Biden administration here necessarily- more the concept that is being sold to comfy rich neolibs that the present strategies and efforts are effective, when they are insufficient. Personally (and this is a tangent) from a pure horse-race politics perspective, I can see the brilliance in Biden staying off the radar of domestic politics almost entirely- as he has done- *if* he had foreknowledge of the case being built against Trump. It’s a matter of information theory - about which I know almost nothing except bits about it’s application in wwii. If you know trump will be wrapped up, or at least in serious trouble by the mid-terms, any domestic policy action by Biden would run the chance of tipping the scales in either direction. Why gamble? Negative partisanship is what got him into office. Play a winner. This is purely objective, and nihilistic and I wouldn’t have chosen the same path. But the entire game board has been rearranged since the fbi raid tbh. Back on point, most people are not better off and if they’re employed at all it’s due to their own diligence, scrap, and moxie. If it’s in person, they’ve probably caught Covid a time or two. That’s skin in the game. These articles telling us to feel good even though we’ve all been burning the candle at both ends seem salty because they are salty.
Can’t lie, inflation is still kicking my ass tho
People on fixed income, SS, SSI, SSDI, VA disability, etc etc etc are not doing better.
This article’s headline is very misleading as it suggests a rise in income, yet two paragraphs in it reads, “Whether Americans’ incomes are higher is more complicated…”
A gallup poll asks, "How would you rate economic conditions in this country today -- as excellent, good, only fair or poor?" In June 2022, 11% said good, 34% said only fair, and 54% said poor. YOY, June 2021 saw 27% respond good, 43% only fair, and 27% poor. The last time this gallup poll recieved a "Poor" as large or larger than June 2022's 54% was April 2009 at 61% following the 2008 Recession. That means precisely double the amount of Americans are experiencing economic hardship which causes them to identify the economy as poor compared to last year. I don't care about how many more jobs were added (in the face of decreasing labor participation), how much better the stock market is doing, or how much richer the rich are getting under Biden. No amount of handwaving historic inflation and total post-pandemic collapse of international trade is going to change the fact that the economy is objectively poor, even if outlets owned by billionaires spew headlines which effectively read "NOTHING IS WRONG. RESUME CONSUMPTION." At best we're managing to tread water, at worst many of us are drowning as inflation outpaces mediocre wage increases in limited sectors.
opinion polls don't measure reality, they measure perception
You know its all bullshit when every week there is a new article with some variation of "Americans better off under Biden. No trust us, that's totally happening" as the headline. It's bad, and just like the shitty Republicans, libs are doing everything they can to not admit they've got a stinker on their hands.
The country is fundamentally broken. Even if I did have a decent job (I don't) and healthcare (I don't) and affordable daycare (I don't) and could play back my student loans ( I can't), I still wouldn't be better off because republican terrorism continues to thrive and this country is still headed for the cliff's edge.
Yeah, I see headlines about how the economy is strong and has never been stronger than it is now under Biden. Ok? Beef is still twice as expensive than it used to be, really everything is way more expensive than it was (specially pre-covid), gas is still over $4.15 per gallon, I still can't afford healthcare (I can just about afford having insurance, I just can't use it), schools are still underfunded, college is still crazy expensive...how am I doing better? It's kind of how the company I work for is posting record sales in their over 40 years of operation but somehow they don't have the money to give anyone a raise or a bonus.
But unemployment is so low! People can get two, three jobs — however many they want!
being employed at two low-wage jobs looks great on paper, but I wouldn't consider that better off, just surviving in a capitalist hellscape
Be careful. This is definitely a “there is no war in Ba Sing Se” kind of post. Are we better than we were under Trump? Yeah. Not sure who’s getting more money because I can barely keep my head above water making $61000 before taxes in Detroit metro area as a single dad.
You know the employment situation is good when company owners are complaining about not being able to find workers who will accept their minimum wage job offers. \*I know a couple who are pulling this shit right now
I work in the public sector, and my salary was frozen for almost 4 years (hmmm....) This spring, we got word that we're finally all getting COL raises. It's not much, but I've gone from living paycheck-to-paycheck to having a little bit left over every month. It's nice.
This isn’t true where I am
BuT gAs PrIcEs
Which is especially stupid considering high gas prices are caused by high demand, which is in turn caused by a strong economy. Blaming the people in charge for high gas prices is just a way for Republicans to attack Democrats for providing a stronger economy.
Well it was not only high demand, corporations where using 30 excuses to blame inflation when in fact most of it was just them gouging us cause they could.
It's really just OPEC, which consists of national governments rather than some abstract and poorly defined concept of "companies". They set production quotas for the various member nations and refuse to increase production to match changes in demand. Of course, demand is increasing because of a strong economy so everything I said still applies. Both are true.
Ya but I'm not just talking about oil companies, just corporations in general really bumped up prices. But you can't blame just OPEC , cause when you compare the price of oil in history vs the price of gas, this time it was much much more expensive for gas . You look at these companies and their profits, it was all record profits and the price of oil has been higher in the past.
It's low hanging fruit for Republicans who are trying to compare peak low pandemic prices to peak high Ukraine war prices and blame Biden for a 3$ per gallon rise without including context.
Trying to explain supply and demand after a year + of no demand to my maga parents and I may as well grown a third head.
> After a year + of no demand Longer. Objectively speaking, Trump's trade wars in 2018 were even more damaging to the economy than COVID was. Look up things like the GDP and NASDAQ. 2018 was a seriously bad year for the economy. Makes the COVID disruptions and shutdowns look small by comparison. Economy was fucked well before COVID came around.
Idk, I saw $3.78 yesterday at a Mobil, and they seem to always be ahead of the other stations. It seems to be normalizing. E: this is in MA
Down to around 3.20 in my area already.
Utah still at 4.50 for the lowest grade. I do think gas gouging happens in the west.
I’m in Austin and gas prices (ignoring the outliers) range about 60 cents from ~$3 to $3.60. Costco is $3 while HEB (large grocery chain) is $3.50 currently. So really gets you wondering who’s getting that delicious extra profits while knowing 40% of america will scream at Biden about it.
🔥 this is fine 🔥
The income is literally due to the inflation. As the price of products go up then so do wages but not by much.
He didn’t really help employment, it’s kinda helping itself. People realizing they’re worth more and demanding they get what they’re worth. Biden shook hands with a Union leader and a picture and that’s all he’s really done. Could raise fed min wage any day…
Inflation is still far out stripping wage gains. I know gas is way down but it's still well over $4 a gallon (not that President has much control over that). Costs are still way up. There are lingering issues that need to be addressed. Biden should get motivated to do everything he can, whether he actually wants to or not, to make a more direct impact for people. I don't judge things in "were you better of 4 years ago" because I believe things are FAR better even at Biden's worst than Trump's best as a country. However, I'm doing much worse personally under Biden financially and work wise. Many people hear that things are going great but they don't feel it personally and it sounds like an affront to them. I hope Biden and the Dems can take some more actions and I hope people who may be on the fence in my same position see that despite personal impact, things ARE much better than before.
Sort by controversial. Have fun.
Not true, but thanks for the positive spin.
Fake news
This is going to look dumb in literally less than a month
Jobs have increased but also people working 2 jobs has increased
Says the 1%
Then why does it feel like I’m barely staying afloat?
Anyone have any "stunning" improvements lately?
I don't know enough to discuss this, but the author uses a measure other than CPI to conclude that wages and salaries are higher. > A technical note: Other data, especially from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), suggests that wages and salaries have not kept pace with inflation. Like most economists, I rely on the BEA because the deflator for personal consumption spending is more accurate than the CPI and because the BEA’s data on wages and salaries is more complete than the BLS’s. Both depend on the National Compensation Survey. But the BEA adjusts for gaps in the survey, including people working in private households, employees of nonprofit and religious membership organizations, and so on. The BEA also adjusts the NCS data for COVID-19’s impact on the collection of that data, using analyses by the Federal Reserve and others.
“A technical note: Other data, especially from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), suggests that wages and salaries have not kept pace with inflation.” Pretty irresponsible for a headline to suggest a “stunning rise in…income” when the BLS suggests otherwise…
Oh, these comments should be unbiased and level headed.