The “perception issue” with the economy right now is simple
Poor and disabled people were better off during the acute stage of the pandemic. They were the biggest beneficiaries of broad government transfers to people, and a lot of non-monetary covid policies made their lives easier
If you give a person relief and then take it away they feel worse after than if you never gave it to them at all
When you’ve deliberately thrown people back into poverty to force them into work that can give them a deadly disabling virus
It’s weird to expect them to be jubilant about the situation
And yeah the poorest folks are a small segment of the overall economy but their cries for help echo throughout social networks both organic and electronic
Even if you’re doing well being surrounded by people crying for help doesn’t make it seem like things are great
On top of this baseline issue and overlapping with it is the housing crisis.
Inflation statistics smooth out what are actually huge spikes in costs for individuals.
Rent went up 8% in Canada in 2023
But a lot of people paid 0% increase and then other people paid 20+% on their highest bill
So you might think those people that paid 0% or 3% rent increase or whatever would be happy and not feel the knock-on effects
but only if you imagine people as dots on your scatter graph rather than social creatures who can see what is happening to other people and worry it might happen to them
without strong protections to prevent displacement and limit rental increases, many folks know it's just a matter of time for them. They can't relax and enjoy "the economy" even if they do happen to be doing better because they have a dagger of financial disaster dangling over them.
I was doing better financially last year than the year before (minus the sick leave, sigh) but I knew I'd almost certainly be displaced when my lease was up so I spent the year mired in financial anxiety anyway. I don't doubt that is the case for a significant number of people
THIS. This is the big thing. "You're doing fine RIGHT THIS SECOND if you ignore all other context, including observable trends, the experience of other people, and financial issues that you know are going to arise at some point because you have an attention span of more than five seconds"
Yeah, floating along in a sea of despair and fear from your nearest and dearest makes it hard to feel optimistic about the future. Even if I’m doing well, how much money do I need to have ready to possibly help friends?
My rent went up 8%, my salary went up 0.5%. My grocery bill probably doubled. I don't care that economists go "OMG INFLATION HAS SLOWED DOWN WE'RE SAVED!!!" As long as my salary doesn't catch up because my CEO needs even more profit than we already have to impress the shareholders, it means nothing!
Economists & rich assholes: stuff is getting expensive less quickly! The economy is doing great, if you disagree you're just being emotional and ignoring the facts
Normal people: yeah but stuff's still expensive, I can't afford to do anything fun and constantly worry about overdrafting my account.
This is a huge and underappreciated part of it, imo- “I’m doing fine but half my TL is constantly in crisis” seems a pretty common sentiment and does quite a bit to people’s perceptions of the economy.
I’m doing ok but I hate my job and I hate where I live. I’ll never find another job at the salary I currently have and if I move I won’t find anywhere liveable that won’t cost me twice what I’m paying now. So I’m doing ok… but I feel stuck as things get shittier around me!
Economics' most consistent, reliable, evergreen error is to ignore the social nature of humans. It explains an astonishing amount of the things it's gotten really badly wrong.
I mean, the entire field is very literally based on ignoring that most of the basic principles don't apply to reality and are purely theoretical tools. It's a form of metaphysics, really
It's got the most stuff embarrassingly wrong of any social science. It doesn't help that large chunks of it are just politically driven nonsense eg trickle-down, debt-growth ratio and austerity, etc.
Oh IDK... demand for food and utilities is "inelastic", which means people have to pay as much as they're being charged.
So that tells me that when prices go up _and_ profits go up that's not inflation that's price gouging.
If profits stayed the same or shrank _that_ would be inflation.
I'll agree that maths helps spot wankers. And that there are economic theories; my problem is those theories are largely at the level of "if I sacrifice my firstborn the crops won't fail".
Science makes predictions and tests them, refining theories until predictive power is useful. Economics... Nah
They were right, UBI was a good idea, and in the initial acute stage of the pandemic when we were mostly locked out of our offices and reliant on handouts and forced waivers on bills to stay afloat,a lot of that UBI happened technically.
