Why are Americans so down on the economy when President Joe Biden’s own statisticians say their boss is doing a fine job?
They kick off by noting that Americans are spending briskly, inflation has come down from the Biden highs—although new numbers say it’s rising again—and gross domestic product (GDP) just turned in a solid 3.1 percent for the year. Official unemployment has been below 4 percent for 24 straight months, the longest stretch since the 1960s.
Americans Aren’t Buying Bidenomics
And yet in opinion surveys, Americans almost universally think that President Biden is doing a [bad] job, with just one in seven Americans saying they’re better off since he was installed. Indeed, President Biden has the second-worst approval rating for a third-year president in history—second only to President Jimmy Carter.
The Journal ventures some guesses, including that a college degree is no longer a golden ticket to the middle class, the endless wars, and the “uninspiring” leadership, and a government “widely seen as dysfunctional”—the border and the United States’ crime-ravaged urban hell-holes being exhibit A.
Of course, they miss the big one, which is that all of those numbers are fake.
Not necessarily fake as in they made up the numbers, although there’s a fair amount of that lurking in things such as seasonal adjustment or hedonic adjustment for inflation.
Lies and Statistics: Jobs
Take unemployment. Now, 3.7 percent is stellar until you recall that unemployment doesn’t count people who have dropped out of the workforce. It counts only people actively looking for work.So all of those fentanyl addicts sleeping on the streets of Philadelphia are, statistically, retired. They’re not unemployed, officially.
Neither are the 6 million-plus Americans who dropped out of the labor force since COVID-19, likely forever.
Count them, and you’re closer to 7 percent unemployment. Which is actually pretty bad—comparable to the lead-in to 2008.
It’s similar with GDP—the other big economic number. That impressive GDP is driven by federal deficits buying growth and soaring social spending, both of which are bankrupting—they’re not making us rich like GDP is supposed to. Without them, we’re stagnant.
Again with consumer spending, fueled by soaring levels of personal debt, rampant doom spending, and now jumps in defaults.
And, finally, the big one: inflation.
I’ve mentioned in recent videos how the progress in inflation has entirely been one-offs from supply chains and energy while underlying inflation kept marching at almost twice the Fed’s target and now rising.
So, yes, gas has come down since Ukraine kicked off, and you can actually get a washing machine delivered, but underlying prices have kept on marching in the dark.
What’s Next
Granting that Americans are discouraged partly because they’re led by someone who starts wars while importing every welfare case who might vote Democrat, it’s more than that.It’s that they can see with their own eyes that the “Everything is Fine” narrative is built on lies. Built on statistics that are very carefully crafted to hide, not to inform.
It’s progress for mainstream media to even consider the possibility that Americans might have a point when they say things are tough. Still, we’ve got a ways to go until the media fully understands how much it has been gaslit by a regime that’s given up on serving the people.
