Majority of Americans wrongly believe US is in recession – and most blame Biden

Generally, when sentiment doesn’t match the statistics, it indicates that you’re gathering the data wrong more than it indicates mass public hysteria. Not that mass public hysteria does not happen.

They’re measuring economic productivity based on the horse trading of exponentially increasing asset prices, while ignoring that people are renting more, living in worse accommodations, having less access to transport, and are eating a worse diet. Just because a small percentage of the population is getting rich on paper doesn’t mean the majority will be persuaded that their economic situation isn’t in free fall.

The Guardian claims in this article that "A recession is generally defined by a decrease in economic activity, typically measured as gross domestic product (GDP), over two successive quarters, although in the US the National Bureau of Economic Research (NEBR) has the final say".

If you are going to let the NEBR have the final say, then you can never know whether you are currently in a recession because the NEBR does not those calls until revised data comes in, which takes a long time.

So the Guardian, by its definition of recession, can not know whether Americans are right or wrong about whether the US is in recession (I don't share their definition, there is no official definition of a recession in the US, although the NBER is a highly respected private organization).

In past recessions, most mainstream economists have denied that there was a recession when one was in fact beginning.

Real median household income in US is in a recession. It’s going in wrong direction for the first time in US history.

https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MEFAINUSA672N

Majority of Americans feel the inflation squeeze.

The top percentile who own assets and businesses are getting a massive boost.

Don't believe your lying wallet.

I've seen multiple administrations try to make the numbers seem better than they are but this administration has gone fully into gaslight mode. It's going to get a lot worse going into the election too. You're going to see articles like this daily. Whatever numbers the government is publishing do not reflect the experiences of the citizens.

Housing is more unaffordable than it has possibly ever been. Grocery prices have skyrocketed. Several of the big jobs reports were actually all part time or government jobs. Full time private employment was flat or down.

I haven't seen this many "Network, I need help" post since 2009.

I vividly remember the Fed refusing to acknowledge a recession until total melt down of the major banks.

One of the common misdirections propagated by these articles is arguing that inflation dropped from 10% to 4%, so things must be better, why aren't people happy about that?

but wait that 4% is on top of the 10%,

the thing that matters is whether the income went up 10% before hitting the 4% inflation, only then would the 4% be a positive number.

the inflation does indeed slow when people run out of money, but that's not going to make put them in good mood

Facts? Where we're going we don't need facts.

"The economy is doing fine — it's just the people who aren't."

As they should blame Biden?

We’re definitely in a recession, after a good 15 or so years of money siphoning upwards. Economists will give answers that are apologetic to the supply side, and people off the street will basically blame Obama or Biden but mysteriously think Trump’s economy was any better (even though, policy and enforcement wise, there was little difference between the three)

Yep. A lot of people are significantly more miserable than they’ve ever been. The mass layoffs were traumatic.

> The vast majority of respondents, 72%, indicated they think inflation is increasing. In reality, the rate of inflation has fallen sharply from its post-Covid peak of 9.1% and has been fluctuating between 3% and 4% a year.

Inflation is increasing the depreciation of the dollar at a rate between 3% and 4% per year. Silly public having no idea that inflation is actually the first derivative of that.