And will voters accept the good news?

whatever American consumers say about the state of the economy, they are spending as if their finances are in pretty good shape. Most recently, holiday sales appear to have been quite good.

…

Americans aren’t acting as if they’re terrified about crime. As I’ve written before, major downtowns have seen weekend foot traffic — roughly speaking, the number of people visiting the city for fun rather than work — recover to prepandemic levels, which isn’t what you’d expect if Americans were fleeing violent urban hellscapes.

  • silence7OP
    59·
    6 months ago

    Yes, there are people for whom it’s awful. Always has been. But the big question is “did it improve for most people?” — and it seems to have.

    • iesou@lemm.ee
      7·
      6 months ago

      This last year people have seen a cost of living jump across the board because of “inflation”.

      Have you noticed how many online services offer payment plans on things as cheap as $10? To me that doesn’t sound like everything is ok. To me that looks more like people trying to pretend like it’s ok while barely getting by.

      • silence7OP
        29·
        6 months ago

        Yes, inflation happened. And for the bulk of the population, wages went up even more. Doesn’t mean that there is no pain, but things actually got better for a lot of folks.

        • iesou@lemm.ee
          2·
          6 months ago

          That’s what I’m saying, it didn’t happen. According to public records many companies that provide necessary items like food and diapers blamed inflation on price increases while their product costs dropped, making TONs of money off the common American.

          Robert Reich talks about Huggies in particular

          • silence7OP
            12·
            6 months ago

            The stats literally show that prices went up but wages went up more.

            There are specific subgroups for whom that has not happened. But for the population as a whole, it did