It’s going well for anyone making capital gains. It sucks for anyone else earning a fucking wage.
Despite economic growth, 70% of Americans believe the economy is getting worse
Submitted 3 months ago by return2ozma@lemmy.world to aboringdystopia@lemmy.world
https://wtop.com/consumer-news/2024/07/despite-economic-growth-70-believe-economy-is-getting-worse/
Comments
cyborganism@lemmy.ca 3 months ago
Lemming6969@lemmy.world 3 months ago
I’m sure there is a different metric that could be reported then, like adjusted buying power.
KyuubiNoKitsune@lemmy.blahaj.zone 3 months ago
Yeah, corporations are doing great, the “economy” is a good indication of that, but it means fuck all for us.
AshMan85@lemmy.world 3 months ago
Gilded age 2.0
APassenger@lemmy.world 3 months ago
I’m ready for progressive Roosevelt-types and I’m voting as hard as I can to get them. I’ll take Teddy, I’ll take FDR, I’ll take Eleanor.
I just want someone scrappy enough to succeed on our behalf.
jubilationtcornpone@sh.itjust.works 3 months ago
“Space travel” is the new “Build a house so big it can hold the the entire population of Newport.”
FlashMobOfOne@lemmy.world 3 months ago
It doesn’t matter that the economy is growing if it isn’t lifting up your life as well. Hundreds of millions of people still live in US states where it’s legal to pay $7 an hour. (2/3 of them) All of us are dealing with rampant inflation, crippling costs for utilities, housing, and food.
The government’s position on this is that the Biden Administratoin has created 16,000,000 jobs, and while that may be true, I’d wager my savings that most of those are second and third jobs, because it’s become impossible to live with just one in the United States of America.
ironhydroxide@sh.itjust.works 3 months ago
I’d wager my savings
Well if you’re like most sub 35yr olds, that’s not a big wager at all.
FlashMobOfOne@lemmy.world 3 months ago
That’s a really depressing statistic. I wish we could get everyone under 40 to vote differently, but I don’t think we can.
APassenger@lemmy.world 3 months ago
I’d wager my savings that most of those are second and third jobs, because it’s become impossible to live with just one in the United States of America.
I’ve wondered this as well - and wondered if Biden ever really grokked what’s happening. Hopefully others do and they follow through once they win (if they do).
FlashMobOfOne@lemmy.world 3 months ago
Biden ever really grokked what’s happening
I don’t think anyone at the federal does. If they do, they simply don’t care, judging by their actions.
We’re about to hit 20 years of the minimum wage being $7 at the federal level, across three administrations, two of which were Democratic with control of Congress.
mrcleanup@lemmy.world 3 months ago
It’s almost like the word has a different meaning on Wall Street than it does for the average person!
chemicalwonka@discuss.tchncs.de 3 months ago
No, no, the economy goes very well to the bourgeois elite that controls the state.The workers who are getting worse and worse.
bobthened@feddit.uk 3 months ago
Because the measures that economists use to measure the economy not relevant to regular people. GDP tells you nothing about living standards.
xenoclast@lemmy.world 3 months ago
Only getting better for the ultra wealthy. That’s what the system is for and it’s working better than it ever has.
Buddahriffic@lemmy.world 3 months ago
I’d say even for the wealthy, their living standards aren’t getting better. At their level of wealth, getting more either means number in accounts goes up if they are passive with it or power over others goes up if they are active with it.
But yeah, capitalism is for those with capital; it’s right in the name.
MystikIncarnate@lemmy.ca 3 months ago
Yep. Just reading the title, the “economy” is up, and people are worse for it.
The fact is, despite record breaking profit, nearly none of that “growth” is being provided to the people creating the value for companies to sell, and is instead being handed upwards to people with more money than brains, who have “invested” in the business.
The lines on the stock market graphs go up, and the people working for that company who create all the things that are generating the profit, are robbed, and their would-be wages are handed to the shareholders.
Is anyone shocked by this? Is anyone surprised by this?
Did anyone not know this already?
What a stupid article.
ZMonster@lemmy.world 3 months ago
I work with people that really struggle to grasp this concept. I work rotations and every hitch I find myself spending the first few days explaining that what they call “the economy” I would call the CPI, whereas what capitalists refer to is corporate profits - and never the twain shall meet. But this is yet another complexity that the right benefits from obscuring, and complexity requires thoughtful consideration for understanding. I realize I’m asking a lot from a bunch of blue collar rubes.
Fox@pawb.social 3 months ago
Part of it is that when people say the “economy” is up, they’re usually only referring to valuations of public companies which is only part of the picture. The price-to-earnings ratio is so wack right now that many companies are trading at 18x their earnings per share, so while profits may be up, the companies are still wildly overvalued compared to their expected output.
Real wage growth has lagged significantly compared to the historical trend. If the labor market continues to take a beating, consumer spending will tank and bring equities down with it.
Itdidnttrickledown@lemmy.world 3 months ago
We think the economy is worse because it is for us. Food prices have doubled or more than doubled in the last ten years and our income is stagnant so we make the same but everything costs more. We don’t see any growth or stability in the quality of our lives.
Inflation is nothing compared to price gouging and price fixing by businesses that no one tries to curtail. This is approved of by the powers that be.
But let one opportunistic asshole corner the market on hand sanitizer in one region of the US at the beginning of a pandemic and he has to give it all away because nearly everyone thinks he is a monster.
huginn@feddit.it 3 months ago
Inflation is nothing compared to price gouging and price fixing by businesses that no one tries to curtail.
Lina Khan is on the case and making waves.
She’s the single most hated person in the C-Suite across the USA.
PagPag@lemmy.world 3 months ago
How old are you? Genuinely curious.
Itdidnttrickledown@lemmy.world 3 months ago
I can remember the last moon landing.
b161@lemmy.blahaj.zone 3 months ago
“Economic growth” = rich people’s yacht money
Pyr_Pressure@lemmy.ca 3 months ago
There’s the “economy” and then there’s the real economy. The one that affects the 1% and the one that affects the 99%.
The 1% love the current “economy”.
The 99% hate the current economy.
henfredemars@infosec.pub 3 months ago
The economy as reported is a measure of rich people sentiment, not a measure of how we’re doing.
some_guy@lemmy.sdf.org 3 months ago
Where was all that growth? Could it be in the pockets of billionaires and the owners of this country? Cause I don’t hear regular people cheering about the extra money they suddenly got from their jobs.
modifier@lemmy.ca 3 months ago
…then it is.
Check your instruments.
SaharaMaleikuhm@feddit.org 3 months ago
Maybe if the average citizen would benefit from economic growth.
werefreeatlast@lemmy.world 3 months ago
Nah, the economy is fine, just like the planet. The people are fucked! Just like George Carlin used to say.
Snapz@lemmy.world 3 months ago
“Believe”
Looks like you should instead be focusing on how these 70% draw the conclusions that lead to their “beliefs”
Empricorn@feddit.nl 3 months ago
I dare you to post a wage gap chart. Who give a fuck if the “country” is growing financially, if like 60 billionaires take more of it??
Venator@lemmy.nz 3 months ago
Also doesn’t even actually help the country grow financially if if all goes to a tax haven…
PanArab@lemm.ee 3 months ago
In the past 4 years my salary grew at about 3-5% while inflation grew at a much higher rate. I don’t even buy eggs anymore.
match@pawb.social 3 months ago
oh boy, gini is up
Omgboom@lemmy.zip 3 months ago
With the most recent employment numbers, things are about to get worse
squid_slime@lemm.ee 3 months ago
GDP has to be the worst way to financially review a country.
BrotherL0v3@lemmy.world 3 months ago
Well yeah. Who gives a fuck about a 2% increase in the GDP? Prices are high and wages are low.
sp3tr4l@lemmy.zip 3 months ago
Housing (homes and apartments) is either in yet another bubble, or I guess just going to permanently remain absurdly high, slowly filtering more and more people into homelessness and death.
Personal debt levels are astoundingly bad. The average US renter credit score is 638, and most places won’t even consider you if it is below 620.
The medical system remains ruinously expensive and corrupt.
The proportion of those who are not counted as unemployed, but who are not working, despite being working age, climbs higher and higher. (Labor Force Participation Rate).
College costs climb further and further, offering less and less likelihood of an actual decent paying job.
Wealth inequality is the worst in the known economic history of the world.
SteveFromMySpace@lemmy.blahaj.zone 3 months ago
Wages and salaries increased 5.1 percent for the 12-month period ending in June 2024 and increased 4.7 percent a year ago. Benefit costs increased 4.8 percent for the 12-month period ending in June 2024. The prior year’s increase was 5.2 percent.