A major trend among mainstream media outlets and pundits in 2023 was them attempting to convince Americans the economy has been doing well under President Biden.
A majority of Americans consistently tell pollsters that they believe the economy is doing poorly, however, leading to a disconnect of sorts as conditions on the ground don’t appear to match with positive economic data like low unemployment and a booming stock market.
Several of these outlets have even gone so far as to claim that Americans’ dour outlook on the issue is due to them not seeing things clearly, and clinging to bad impressions of the economy.
During the summer, MSNBC host Chris Hayes touted Biden’s economic success, claiming that the president is “on the right path to pull off one of the greatest macroeconomic policy magic tricks of all time.”
He also criticized the voters for not seeing the administration’s deft handling of the country’s financial issues. In an article titled, “The Biden economy is strong. Why don’t voters agree?” the anchor wrote, “We have a lot of data showing that our economy is doing really well. But Americans are just not feeling it. A recent AP poll found that only 3 in 10 adults think the economy is good.”
He dismissed many of these people’s opinions, at least those belonging to Biden’s political opponents, writing, “Some Republicans will never say the Biden economy is doing well — even in the face of loads of evidence to the contrary.”
Newsweek senior writer Katherine Fung wrote a piece in August titled, “Biden’s Economy Is Booming. Here’s Why You’re Not Feeling It,” citing former President Reagan’s economic adviser Arthur Laffer.
Laffer said, “Inflation numbers are coming way down, employment numbers appear to be strong, real wages for the first time appear to be increasing, the GDP number is 2.4 percent—that at least in recent historical context is pretty damn good — the stock markets had 11 straight days of positive.”
However, Fung noted that Americans are fixated on inflation still being up and missing the economic gains.
“Because people don’t like inflation, even when their wages are up, Americans will focus on the slow pace of real wage growth, rather than real wage growth alone,” she wrote.
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ABC News published a piece in July stating that voters’ impressions of the economy need to catch up with the successes Biden has had this year.
“The state of the economy and how it affects Americans personally is traditionally a key — if not the most important — issue for voters. But their perceptions can lag behind the numbers and many remain unconvinced Biden has done a good job handling the economy, polls show, while Republicans are hitting him on it at every turn on the campaign trail,” the outlet wrote. “Despite the progress, Biden remains underwater with voters when it comes to the economy.”
A Washington Post piece from November famed Americans’ sour view of the economy as a “mystery,” stating, “Most Americans are financially better off than they were before the coronavirus pandemic, but they feel worse about their economic prospects.”
The Post’s article praised Biden’s handling of the economy, saying he “has played a considerable role in improving Americans’ financial situation, through legislative victories that have yielded a surge in government funding and related private investment.”
However, it slammed Americans for not recognizing it.
“Yet Americans are still angry that prices rose as much as they did, showing up in consumer sentiment that has fallen for three straight months,” it added. “That disconnect between a booming economy and how Americans feel about it appears to be widening at a critical time ahead of next year’s presidential election. It is also shaping up to be a key liability for the White House.”
An Associated Press report claimed, “The U.S. economy is doing even better than the government thought.” It stated, “The U.S. economy, the world’s largest, has proved resilient even as the Federal Reserve has raised its benchmark interest rate 11 times since March 2022 to fight the worst bout of inflation in four decades.”
The piece cited Independent Advisor Alliance CIO Chris Zaccarelli, who told the outlet, “Given the positive economic backdrop, we believe the market will rally until the end of the year and we should have a good start to 2024 – the exact opposite of what many believed as recently as this summer.”
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NPR also insisted during an October radio segment that the “economy is doing remarkably well,” but lamented that Americans’ “economic confidence” was still “deep in the red.”
One of the hosts described how Americans’ attitudes on the economy have been “negative almost every month since the pandemic began,” adding, “And while it’s not as bad as it was last summer when gasoline prices hit an all-time high, topping $5 a gallon, it’s still pretty grim.”
Additionally, a November article from The Atlantic, titled, “Why Americans Hate a Good Economy,” chided citizens for not recognizing recent economic achievements from the government.
It wrote how the unemployment rate is down, that the Consumer Price Index is unchanged, that wage inequality has fallen in recent years, and that the “U.S. has been adding jobs at a record clip.” It also noted, “And wages – adjusted for inflation – may have finally surpassed pre-pandemic levels.”
However, it said that Americans aren’t touting this success for several reasons, one of them being that economic conditions have “changed really fast,” another that “the government may have raised expectations for what a ‘good economy’ is supposed to feel like” among the public with all the money printed during the pandemic.
Despite this insistence that the economy is doing well under Biden, most Americans’ impressions of it are poor and getting worse.
A poll from the New York Times and Siena College conducted in November found over 60% of Democratic voters across six battleground states rated the economy as only “fair” or “poor.”
A poll from Fox News conducted around that same time found 78 percent of voters surveyed say the economy is in bad shape, and two-thirds don’t see any signs that it’s turning around.
Fox News’ Dana Blanton and Anders Hagstrom contributed to this report.
