Since COVID food prices went up around 50% on many items that I pay attention to. (Example: meat & fish) For many Americans, messaging about the "great economy" does not match their lived experience.

This is the answer. When you have one candidate saying things are bad and he will make them better and another saying things are great when things for most people are not great, it should be pretty obvious who people will resonate with.

Inflation were caused by mass factories shutdown in China and South East Asia. When they reopen they got so many orders that they simply increase their prices.

Do you have any references for that? I think it could be part of the story but I still think printing trillions of dollars will make things more expensive, especially when you consider where this money went!

How did the COVID handouts cause inflation? It was only a small amount. Isn't inflation caused by macro-economic forces, e.g. interest, international policy / stability, and free market somethings?

5 Trillion added to the Fed balance sheet is not a small handout. They didn't o ly hand out money to individuals but also gave to businesses and propped up the bond market.

Let's not forget, though, that Trump is the one who kicked this off: he signed the first COVID-related stimulus package ad the end of March 2020, to the tune of $2 trillion.

Given that he was only in office for the first year of the pandemic, it seems reasonable that Biden signed another $3 trillion away. If all that caused inflation, Trump and Biden deserve the blame together.

If you print money to pay for things generally that causes inflation, it’s one of the few clear facts economists will tell you they 100% know.

Yes as a person you got a modest check. You don’t remember all the fraudulent “loans” than have been prosecuted? Most of the money went to !individual people.

And don’t forget all those PPP loans that Congress persons didn’t have to pay back https://fortune.com/2020/07/08/ppp-loan-recipients-members-o...

Regular businesses didn’t either, my company got one but actually voluntarily did pay it back

The reason COVID handouts caused inflation while the '08 handouts didn't is that the COVID handouts went to regular people who spent the money while the '08 was wasted on bailing out the 1%, who spent it on assets that regular people don't buy every week.

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.

And that's a lot of people.

Real income (i.e. inflation-adjusted) actually increased the most for the lowest-percentile households from 2022 to 2023. https://www.whitehouse.gov/cea/written-materials/2024/09/10/...

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.

Aka “let them eat inflation adjusted household income reports”

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”.

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.

Many people don't trust that math.

Yes, I understand that some people actually are worse off, and a much larger group of people incorrectly believe they are worse off.

Again this is averages, tell me what happened to the bottom 40% inflation adjusted?

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.

From 2022 to 2023 they got the biggest real income bump of any group: https://www.whitehouse.gov/cea/written-materials/2024/09/10/...

People feel otherwise because sticker prices went up. Why did this need explained?

Sticker prices don’t come down. Deflation is the boogeyman of economists.

Then incumbents will continually lose for not fixing the problem.

> people are just hacked off that life is getting worse for most people while billionaires get richer and richer.

So their answer is to vote precisely for a representative of that class (supported by richest guy in the world). And at the same time, the same electors have a strong disdain for anything remotely socialistic such as free health care and education for all.

Cockroaches for Raid®

> My theory: people are just hacked off that life is getting worse for most people while billionaires get richer and richer. Every disaster the wealthy get handouts while the poor have to pay for them. Government can no longer afford anything because all of its assets have been sold and rented back at a profit.

So they support the candidate with the billionares bankrolling him and and doing "million dollar sweepstakes". Give me a break.

the dems don't have billionaires bankrolling them? if two assholes compete, the asshole who's honest about being an asshole is going to be more popular than the asshole who pretends to be such a nice guy.

Trump is the only candidate to advertise himself as a billionaire.

I know you're not advocating for it but it doesn't make sense to essentially vote in 2x billionaires into office.

I'm just disappointed we may never know what Russia has on Musk. He went from being an avid atheist Democrat to pretending to be a Christian and pushing for Republican like his life depended on it. What is he hiding? Why was he so afraid?

You might as well empty Arkham Asylum whilst all the pardons for crimes are being dished out.

> He went from being an avid atheist Democrat to pretending to be a Christian and pushing for Republican like his life depended on it.

> What is he hiding?

I'd go for a more obvious explanation. It's not uncommon for people to adopt more extreme and conservative POV as they get older. Social networks don't help.

I'd go with occams razor: in this case, it is just political opportunism. Musk saw a dumb, easily flattered guy who would give him a very powerful position in government, which Musk can wield to his own financial benefit. Musk has already tweeted that Lina Khan's days are numbered. That sounds like it is potentially worth millions to Elon.

I think it's pretty obvious — Russia has ASAT weapons and tested them in 2021.

You would not need much to destroy a whole Starlink orbit.

And yet the US economy is doing great, much better than most developed countries, and most of those countries are not going off the rails to quite the same extent.

Inflation is probably relevant, since even though it's down by a lot, the sticker shock so to speak lingers for a while.

Doing great for whom?

The US economy is doing great for the people already with money. Everyday people who need to buy groceries and gas are getting pinched just as hard as ever.

But... but... Trump's policies are even more tax breaks for the rich and tariffs on everything, do people not understand this?

I'm not sure if you're being rhetorical, but people in the United States generally do not understand this. Even among those who are pro-Democrat, the differences in tax and tariff policy are usually not the top three issues.

Narrator: people did not understand this

I think they just assume things can’t get worse so f** it. Most people only vaguely know policies and are voting based on feelings.

It's pretty hard to run a campaign on "change" when you're the incumbent and nobody voted for you.

Plenty of people have good reasons to support tariffs. Free trade destroyed a lot of industries and adjanced communities and the free trade fans didn't give a damn about them.

Do…people really think that prices will go down when cheap foreign labor is off the table? Do they think we can establish replacement infrastructure at comparable costs in months or a couple of years? Will they want to work those jobs for comparable pay to keep the costs of goods stable?

Probably more like wages will go up when cheap foreign labor is off the table. Higher income offsets higher prices for industries where wages rise. For the currently well paid the purchasing power may drop.

Silicon Valley didn't care about the rust belt, so why should the rust belt care about SV?

Will the wages increase more than the prices?

Aren't most things Americans buy imported or contain imported parts (for example all electronics)?

Won't a decrease in exports, because of other nations ti-for-tat tariffs, decrease wages for many US workers?

In aggregate things will get more expensive, but purchasing power of some will increase. Or at least that's the idea.

That "some" probably won't include most Trump supporters.

The fallacy here is that US industries will even be able to compete with 200% tariffs.

They won't, and they can't, and they certainly can't do it immediately. It takes decades to build up the manufacturing efficiency and processes to compete with China. We lost all of it.

We will continue to buy from China because it will STILL be cheaper. And your goods will be 3x more expensive, and that's the best-case scenario for a lot of goods.

High-paying, secure, union manufacturing job are never coming back. New factories are heavily focused on non-union workers and automation.

Cheap foreign labour is good for rich people but bad for poor people that they compete with, at least in the short term.

No, they really don't, and they shouldn't be allowed to vote IMO.

Yes, but voters are forced to choose between the fuckers who screwed them yesterday and the fuckers who will screw them tomorrow.

He gave out money during covid that reasonates.

You mean: "He put his name on checks sent out" - it wasn't his money and it would've gone out anyway.

We'll have to wait and see re: tariffs, but the democrats are no different on tax breaks for the rich.

Harris' plan lowered taxes for everyone making less than 900K per year

https://itep.org/kamala-harris-donald-trump-tax-plans/

Didnt Biden want to raise taxes on those making more than 400k a year or something?

Biden was all in on tariffs too.

Go look at a chart of income inequality. It hasn’t improved under any administration. So why do they still feel Trump is the answer? Inflation.

Income inequality hasn't increased in the US since 2014, and sharply /decreased/ since 2019. The current administration did an amazing job at improving it!

https://recruitonomics.com/the-unexpected-wage-compression/

(Note this is about wage inequality, which strictly speaking isn't income inequality. The best policy for income inequality would be bringing back the expanded CTC.)

But the median voter doesn't actually like this, because they have above-median income due to being older, and this means service workers got more expensive.

Do you hear yourself? In one breath you agree with me that income inequality is rising, and then say it’s bad for service workers to have higher wages.

No, I said 1. income inequality stopped increasing in 2014. 2. wage inequality is /falling/. 2. median voters (who are upper-middle-class) want it to go back up.

Income inequality is stalled because some benefits from 2020 expired, namely the expanded CTC, and we should really fix that.

Not only is wage inequality strictly speaking not income inequality, but income equality strictly speaking is not wealth inequality. The big problem is wealth inequality. Even if incomes were entirely equalized today, wealth inequality and its pernicious effects would persist for a long time.

"America first" includes economic policies that drive up commerce, even at the cost of our allies. German news is full of VW and other auto executives wanting to leave for production in the US. Trump's tariffs mean companies will just want to produce in the US and export outside it. And it's working.

Do people not understand this?

Tariffs are an unnecessary price increase. To use your example, there will be some modest net growth of manufacturing at the expense of higher prices for everyone, typically dominating any net growth in jobs.

There are no tariff price increases for cars/ other goods produced in the US. Companies will build a manufacturing plant in the US to access the market. They will in turn benefit from low regulation and less strict worker rights.

Correct. Tariffs increase the prices needed to purchase cars generally, not just those produced in the US. Perhaps that is what you're missing in your analysis. If the market rate for a car is P, which is below what America can produce the cars for, P_America, then the only way for domestic production to be competitive at an equivalent quality is for a tariff to balance P_America <= P+Tariff. So while folks prefer to purchase at price P, which a free and non-tariffed market would prefer and would give consumers a better price overall, we instead rely on a distortionary tariff and pay P_America, ultimately hurting consumers. In this Econ 201, this results in dead weight loss. Hacker News would benefit from image inserts here, so indirect you to wiki instead to understand the topic better. This is an inefficiency, meaning that tariffs in imported autos are driving a jobs program without real economic benefit to all (but a minor benefit to folks that are working in an industry doomed to fail after the tariff is removed by a more savvy political party who understands you can't infant-industry your way out of offshored industry).

It's not my analysis. I'm quoting car manufacturing CEO's, as per German national TV.

Ah. Yes. They are kissing the ring and making plans on how to survive.

They are actively leaving and my home state's economy is in real danger of collapsing. I think I'm correct in being afraid.

The idea that you’re going to be producing iPhones or other mobile phones in the US (for example) is extremely unlikely in the next decade. It will be interesting to see the chaos he causes if he goes through with this and the plan to deport 20 million people.

I’m sure there will be masses of folks moving to rural areas to pick up those sweet, sweet agricultural jobs that pay $5/hr under the table, or do repetitive precision PCB assembly all day for $1.25/hr and 80hr 6-day work weeks.

While I'm also skeptical, production could be moved from the US and other Western countries into Asia thanks to the "correct" economical incentives. There is no reason it can be moved again. But we all know it will be moved to Africa and Southeast Asia, but still.

Who said anything about iPhones? Last time a president spoke about it was Obama and he said those jobs are never coming back.

I thought Trump said putting tariffs on everything imported from China would lead to jobs coming back to the US? So Trump said it not me. It’s just an example of where this policy is unworkable is my point.

I'm not talking iPhones, I'm talking "luxury" commodities like cars and other expensive equipment where quality counts.

Tariffs will make this much worse for two reasons:

1. importing your inputs becomes more expensive.

2. other countries will impose retaliatory tariffs on your exports.

This is not how to do economic development; Asian countries instead used export promotion. (…And wage suppression and currency weakening.)

We lack the critical infrastructure and skills to produce a lot of these things, so it won’t just magically restore jobs but it will increase taxes for the foreseeable future.

Many people in the US believe that the target country is the one who pays the tariffs, and don't understand that they pay for them, at the cash register.

> people are just hacked off that life is getting worse for most people

Yeah that’s my read on it too.

Rather unfortunate that the response was to elect someone that’s more showman/ego trip than leader with technocratic skills

Weren’t most of the COVID handouts done under Trump? I recall people getting up in arms because Trump wanted his signature on the handouts.

Trump signed the first relief package, $2 trillion worth, at the end of March 2020. That wasn't "most", but it was a significant chunk of it.

I think this is kind of it for me, I didn't want Kamala to win at all, but I also didn't want Trump to be president.

It feels like we have been on this march for the last 40+ years of eroding working class leverage and handing power over to politicians and giant corporations.

Dems have been struggling because they keep putting out the same lifetime politicians who promise to play ball and keep moving us down this road. They need someone who promises actual change, someone who is a threat to entrenched power structures. Bernie 100% was that guy for the Dems and they buried him... twice... He was the last time I was remotely excited for an election.

And who do you think has been in charge of that corruption?