Life is not getting worse for most people, at least not economically. See for example https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MEHOINUSA672N --- median real (i.e. inflation-adjusted) household income in the USA is at an all-time high, even though we had a pandemic.
I don't know why people believe otherwise. Maybe it's just rising expectations, fueled by rising inequality?
> Maybe it's just rising expectations, fueled by rising inequality?
Rising inequality is entirely enough to explain the whole thing. The bottom two quintiles saw their cost of living absolutely explode, and their salaries not keeping up. Median real income will never reflect something like that.
Housing isn't any cheaper. Basics like groceries aren't either. If someone is struggling to own a clean and safe home, pointing at averages isn't convincing.
Yeah this trope won’t die. You can win an internet thread with data that tells people they don’t know they’re better off, but you can’t win an election when they don’t believe it.
“Nobody likes my product because they are stupid”.
I think there’s this massive negative bias in a lot of our media, by our I mean globally. Social media and news. So I think you’re right, life is generally getting better for most people, COVID was a temporary blip in that trend. However… Inequality is growing rapidly between the middle class and the ultra rich, and the middle class in many developed countries is being squeezed due to cost of living issues, I think that’s a a part of the reason for this result. Also median income alone is useless, it has to be compared against cost of living. A measure of a middle class family’s ability to grow wealth is the difference between their income and their essential expenses. That is what matters.
I know that your comment implies that the bottom 40%'s income went downwards, but just because variance (inequality) increased doesn't mean that must have happened. It could have also went upwards (income increased), just slower than the top.
Some data would be good here. I don't have any, but if you want to imply that the bottom 40% went downwards, please show some data instead of insinuating it.
Even if people got pay rises they see the headline price of food (if they are poor) going up by in some cases > 50% as well as rents going up dramatically (ironically caused by increasing interest rates) and even if they got a great raise (and are in theory better off) you are not feeling it, hence the result. Gas prices too.
As ever it's a multivariate problem but the biggest part of it is being promised jam tomorrow and even worse being told things are going great when you see evidence they are not. She should have thrown Joe under a bus.
This isn't just a problem in the US the whole West is ungovernable and we will see most governments getting one term assuming that they don't turn into Victor Orban's Hungary.
The data was provided over the past 24 hours or so: the electorate believes they are worse off due to inflation, and that their wages haven't increased to offset it.
I don't know why people believe otherwise. Maybe it's just rising expectations, fueled by rising inequality?