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Because people want to be doing better than just okay and they want nobody to be struggling. Especially when there's a few people who are making several orders of magnitude more than those who are "doing okay."
Gift article: I’m OK, but Things Are Terrible
That's likely true, but is also always likely true. The question is why are the proportion of responses on individual household stability different than prior years with similar economic measures. It's something affecting perceptions, or are we missing a measure of the economy? Some l since the study is a long ongoing one done by the fed, and it is 73% doing at least ok, it seems like there is some interesting questions to form for further follow-up.
A couple things might have changed. First, the shared experience of the pandemic may have increased the average level of empathy - outside of some nutjobs. If you're doing okay but you care about the people around you struggling you won't think the economy is doing well.
Second, income inequality is now higher than at any time in history. Many Americans would probably put "fairness" as part of the criteria for how they judge the economy. While it's nice that your wages are keeping up with inflation, your boss's boss's boss's boss's boss got a seven-figure bonus on top of his eight-figure salary and nine-figure-plus net worth.
And while this will definitely raise the median and mean incomes nationally, people won't feel like things are improving, leading to data that makes economists shrug.
Then again, until recently economists had to create an entirely new species of hominid to explain their theories so I don't trust them to have a good idea of how normal people think.
I tend to agree in that I think much of the perception discrepancy is based on the belief that a greater proportion of the country is suffering, or that the suffering happening is preventable. To your point, inequity shapes people's perception and it's hard not to feel like big companies and execs are screwing people for a few extra percentage points. The general feeling that people are suffering and it is particularly avoidable compared to the (perception) in the past could explain negative attitudes towards the economy and inflation.
Thanks for the great conversation!
You too! The fediverse is just so friendly :)