Perhaps most alarming, 7 out of 10 people surveyed believed the economy wasn’t getting better — even after they were explicitly told that inflation had eased and unemployment sat near record lows. That preface, designed specifically to persuade voters to brighten their view of the economy, did not seem to move them.
“When we intentionally put our finger on the scale, and 100 percent of people hear good economic indicators before saying if the economy’s going well for them, we still get walloped,” said Adam Green, co-founder of the Progressive Change Campaign Committee.
I love how despite the fact that it’s widely known that the unemployment rate isn’t just “people without jobs” but rather “people currently on unemployment benefits while they look for work”, the idea that a lot of people simply cannot find jobs that provide a sustainable income never comes up in these discussions
It’s like walking up to a bunch of people whose houses are on fire and saying “congratulations, fewer houses burned down this year than in the last 200 years combined!”
I feel like the analogy would work better if the houses had burned down last year and they were living in a tent next to the smoldering remains.
I didn’t even get my unemployment when I got fired in March. I applied and it got all confusing and they never sent me a dime. Apparently a previous company disputed my firing for some goddamn reason.
Inflation was higher, so high that costs increased faster than wages. More of your paycheck went to necessities rather than servicing debt or having savings.
Inflation got lower, though still higher than wages. You’re still paying way more in relative costs because nothing has actually offset the original high inflation. It’s reasonable for you to still feel squeezed.
Gimme an economics fellowship I’m clearly the smartest economist.
You’re not a great economist if you don’t know how to make rich people richer WHILE screwing over the poor at the same time. It is not just enough to bring in profit, you have to make the poor SUFFER at the same time.
The problem must be media literacy! 🧐
“Democrats are failing at messaging!” - /r/politics
Trust not your deceiving stomach, your conniving body aches, or the cold lies of your chattering teeth.
You’re working three jobs instead of being unemployed and a loaf of bread is only 5% more than it was last month instead of 10% more! Can’t you illiterate peasants see how great that is?
US government is dangerously fking up. One of the most basic rules of governance going back thousands of years is to at the very least ensure the masses have plentiful bread and circuses.
A rant because this shit has been bothering me:
For circuses, it’s the lack of new movies, TV episodes, and good books. Ironically it was knowledge of how important entertainment is that caused the US government and most governments to exempt entertainment media production from COVID lockdowns. Even before the Hollywood strikes caused an industry wide production halt, the number of episodes in a standard scripted TV season had been steadily shrinking. We have at this point gone from a standard yearly season of a TV show having 24 episodes to in 2023 and in upcoming announced seasons the number of episodes in a season is 8 episodes. This dramatic drop in episode count is even apparent in animated television. You have to look at content from places outside Hollywood, like Japan, to still find standard 24 episode seasons (example). The major film studios are not just making less movies and refusing to produce anything other than “cinematic universe” garbage but just canceling ready to release films in exchange for a tax deduction that is lower than even the worst possible box office revenue. On top of this the so-called “big five” publishers (ie where books come from that aren’t content-mill Amazon Kindle store garbage from authors that somehow write over a hundred 350-page books per year) have dramatically cut how many new works of fiction they release each year.
We currently have food prices increasing and quality decreasing dramatically month over month. It’s not just the price and quality but people notice that every time they visit a grocery store there are items out of stock (empty shelves) in categories other than the fresh produce section where something being periodically out of stock has always been expected. Because we are talking about the US, rather than “price and availability for a loaf of bread” it’s better to look at frozen potato products, frozen burritos, and tortinos frozen pizzas. They are a staple for a vast majority of lower income Americans who don’t even have access to full sized grocery stores.
Since 2020 when visiting a grocery store there is a decent chance the frozen food section doesn’t have products like frozen tater tots or burritos in stock. In that time the price has gone from an average $2 for 28oz of frozen potato product to $6 for packages that are now 22oz. We are talking 300% inflation. Grocery stores also have added 10oz to 12oz packages that cost $3.50, in attempt to obfuscate this price increase on a staple. With frozen burritos the price went from on average $2.35 for a package of 12 to somewhere around $7. With tortinos frozen pizzas the price has gone from $1.25 to $3.00. On top of the prices increasing nearly three fold, the quality has noticably dropped on these food products that were already considered low income slop. This has been especially apparent with tortinos frozen pizzas where back in 2021 they changed something about the cheese that makes it no longer melt or brown even a little bit and has these weird discolored lumps in the cheese with an off flavor.
Deepthroating a copy of Atlas Shrugged is going to bite the US government in the ass so badly.
“Uhh…no one owes you your bread and circuses. You’re not a business, stop being so entitled!”
In North Korea, the state tells people that everything is fine, even as the masses are wracked by unemployment and inflation.
unemployment
umm actually if you stop trying to get a job after a year you’re not unemployed!
The regime uses its own strange and counterintuitive definitions of words to try to fool casual observers into thinking that things are better than they actually are.
The state tells people what answer to give before polling them on if they support the regime or not.
Liberals once again fail to acknowledge that people are influenced more by material reality than by vibes alone
Vibenation
Wow almost as if sole magical number being high doesn’t help people pay their bills and buy groceries. That’s wild we never could have guessed that.
Oh well surely we can fix that by just running more advertising campaigns
“Yes, our quality of life was eviscerated. But for a beautiful moment of time, we created a lot of value for shareholders.”
Perhaps most alarming, 7 out of 10 people surveyed believed the economy wasn’t getting better — even after they were explicitly told
that inflation had eased and unemployment sat near record lows.to change their fucking answer.Spiritual twin to this post
I hate Trump but at least that mother fucker gave me money, even if it was chump change compared to what we should get
All I’ve gotten from Genocide Joe is thousands of dead children and that was as far from what I wanted as materially possible