Why Bidenomics Gets So Little Love? Blame David Brooks!

Bidenomics is the President's signature economic plan, meant to grow the economy from the middle out and bottom up. It is a rejection of the Republican party's core policies of "trick-down economics" and is expected to be financed in part by greater taxes on the wealthy and corporations. And it seems to be working: (i) 13 million jobs added since Biden's inauguration (January 2021)--including 800K of those elusive manufacturing jobs, (ii) unemployment at less than 4%, and (iii) the strongest growth since the pandemic of any major economy. Yes, inflation reached a 40-year high in June of last year with a yoy increase of 9.1% but thanks to the Fed's aggressive rate hikes and supply chain normalization, CPI has steadily declined (though still elevated at 3.7%). If the conventional wisdom about elections is true, that "it's the economy, stupid", then Biden should be sitting pretty. 

Yet, despite robust job growth, rising wages, and falling inequality the electorate is anxious about the state of affairs, very anxious; an NBC poll at the end of June found 74% of Americans feel the country is heading in the wrong direction. Huh? Why is Biden not getting credit for the economy?

Inflation is certainly a part of it. A September Harris poll for the Guardian newspaper found that "two-thirds of respondents (68%) reported it’s difficult to be happy about positive economic news when they feel financially squeezed each month (Republicans: 69%, Democrats: 68%)." And there is hard data to support such disquiet. While most measures show real wages are up since prior to the pandemic, Jason Furman (Harvard economist and chair of the Council of Economic Advisers under President Obama) calculates that [they] are still 3-5% below their immediate pre-pandemic trajectory. In other words, things were already improving under Trump then the pandemic hit, followed by nearly double-digit not transitory inflation causing real wages to plummet. Workers' real incomes are now back up to Q1 2020 levels, but still below the trajectory they were on in the waning years of the Trump administration. Simply put, Americans feel real wages should be higher.   

But the Harris/Guardian survey finds another, more dire, reason for voters' dissatisfaction: mistrust in media and government. Two-thirds of Americans (65%) believe that the economy is worse than the media makes it out to be. For example, while the unemployment rate was close to a 50-year low in August at 3.8%, the poll found that "51% [surveyed] wrongly believe that unemployment is nearing a 50-year high rather than those who believe it’s actually low (49%)". And it wasn't just Republicans, a sizable number Independents and Democrats also felt the same.

Taken together, it's not much of a surprise that more than half of Americans (53%) believe the economy is getting worse instead of better or staying the same. Republicans and independents were more likely to think it’s getting worse (72% and 58%, respectively, v Democrats: 32%).

That brings us to David Brooks, the New York Times' conservative columnist and recovering neocon/Republican.  In a June op-ed, he also explored why Biden was struggling to make his economic case. Sure, inflation was a part of it, but Brooks believed the media and (crucially) a bruised national psyche were mainly to blame. What's that again, David? National psychology. Brook argues that during the Trump era Americans suffered "a collective moral injury, a collective loss of confidence, a loss of faith in ourselves as a nation". It is reflected in a recent Gallup poll showing Americans' "satisfaction with their personal lives is nearly four times as high as their satisfaction with the state of the nation". And the media isn't helping, over the past couple of decades headlines have grown starkly more negative, particularly from right-leaning outlets, stoking anger and distrust. Hmm...like if a nationally syndicated columnist were to tweet on his NYT X account about the outrageous price ($78) of an airport hamburger and fries meal as an example of why Americans are so gloomy about the economy, while conveniently omitting that 80% of the tab ($62) was for his bar bill.

Maybe he was speaking an "emotional truth". Regardless, intentional or not, he validated his own media thesis about trust. Does this mean Biden is toast...no, not really. Because, at this point Trump is almost a lock for the Republican nomination leading by 50 points over his nearest rival, Ron DeSantis in recent polls...but Biden wins against Trump in a rematch! Politics!!