Exclusive Harris poll for the Guardian shows 55% believe economy is shrinking, in troubling sign for president’s re-election bid

Nearly three in five Americans wrongly believe the US is in an economic recession, and the majority blame the Biden administration, according to a Harris poll conducted exclusively for the Guardian. The survey found persistent pessimism about the economy as election day draws closer.

The poll highlighted many misconceptions people have about the economy, including:

  • 55% believe the economy is shrinking, and 56% think the US is experiencing a recession, though the broadest measure of the economy, gross domestic product (GDP), has been growing.

  • 49% believe the S&P 500 stock market index is down for the year, though the index went up about 24% in 2023 and is up more than 12% this year.

  • 49% believe that unemployment is at a 50-year high, though the unemployment rate has been under 4%, a near 50-year low.

  • MelodiousFunk
    10·
    29 days ago

    Those lines have been diverging for over a generation. You’ll need a vice grip the size of the Grand Canyon to squeeze hard enough make any real world difference.

    • mozz@mbin.grits.dev
      6·
      29 days ago

      Absolutely accurate. Also means it’s kind of silly to kick out (with no plan for a better replacement, and with specific plans for something much much worse) the guy who actually vice gripped them together by a little bit, though, or assert that he’s hurting everyone on purpose and that they’re actually still going apart and that’s his fault and if you try to tell me any different then (hostility).

      Usually, economic policies on the scale of the whole country take quite a while to kick in and really produce significant improvement even when you can get them through congress (which, a bunch of his more aggressive than this stuff, he couldn’t).