There is a big split right now between the metrics
of the economy and the reality as it's being felt
by Americans.
But you have some outward signs that say that things
should be pretty good,
and yet they're not. For so many Americans.
How do you feel about the economy
right now? It's gone down.
Let's begin by taking stock of where the American economy
is today.
The unemployment rate is about
3.8%. The GDP growth is about
2.2%. Now, if you look at those numbers and looked
at them in isolation,
you would say, whoa, the economy is doing pretty good.
Of course, when you look at the polling,
that's not the answer. Americans feel pretty down about the
economy,
and specifically they feel quite down about President Biden's handling
of the economy.
Almost half of Americans feel like their lives have gotten
worse economically since the start of the Biden in this
region
today is not hyper. We have the strongest economy in
the world and you're looking at me a little sceptical
and I promise you,
check it out. Over time,
perceptions of the economy have become less tied to the
actual economic performance,
and that's because partisanship has increased,
housing has increased,
interest rate has gone up.
So we haven't seen a real overall approach from any
of the candidates.
Frankly, that reflects the reality of governing in
2023-2024 and beyond the fact that prices are as high
as they are,
the sense that wages haven't kept up,
you also have a series of strikes going on.
You also have a looming and growing debt crisis.
When you talk about how much debt the federal government
is racking up
and has racked up now for decades under Democratic and
Republican rule,
this is a fight for the UAW,
For my brothers and sisters that
should be getting paid
a livable wage. I would love to be a homeowner
once I reach 30,
but with the economy, I'm not sure if that's going
to happen
Before the pandemic. We had
low levels of inflation for like decades at that point.
And so in response to this crisis,
there's a massive amount of stimulus that is pumped into
the economy.
Essentially, it's the CARES Act,
which is over $2 trillion
in March. There's another stimulus package that's almost a trillion
dollars that's passed in December.
A Democratically controlled government in Washington passes so that $2
trillion stimulus.
So now the stimulus has totaled more than $5 trillion.
And economists start warning folks,
you know, this may be too much stimulus.
So we see inflation rise to a place that we
haven't seen in American life since the 70s or 80s.
So now what happens? The Fed stops printing cash.
They start raising interest rates at the fastest level,
also in decades, inflation does start to go down.
But if you have a mindset of when you experience
9%
inflation annually but then, oh,
the next year inflation's only 4%.
In your mind, you're still paying
13% more than you were two years earlier.
That while wages were rising throughout that period,
they were not rising at the same rate as prices.
So for a majority of Americans,
they were literally getting poorer.
So there's a there's a big disconnect though between the
numbers and the the the realities as people feel it.
And that, I think, is fueling Part of the uncertainty
is that you can you can show people that things
are good,
but if they don't feel it and they haven't felt
it to date,
it's a very hard political argument to make.
Until or unless people feel better about the economy,
it will be an overriding issue.
So this is a time I think of political uncertainty
that matches the economic.