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Richard's avatar

Just to state the obvious, median real wages have increased, so people generally are better off. The problem is everyone views prices as due to evil forces and wages as due to personal virtue, without seeing any relationship between the two.

David John Urban's avatar

Good article Jared. My guess is that almost all who voted for Donald Trump thought Biden's inflation was terrible but now that "their guy" is in office prices and inflation are no longer important. I think of those plots of polling on economy that immediately came up for Republicans as soon as Trump won. Inflation and prices are an important topic but we should not fool ourselves that word smithing economic data can counter the right wing propaganda machine brain washing and the main stream media sane washing.

Dennis Allshouse's avatar

Terrific explanation however considering that, i don’t know, 70% or more people including mainstream journalists do not get simple math, the info is lost in the fog of zero understanding.

HueyFreeman's avatar

See, therein takes very solid, boring economic theory, and propels it into applied economics that makes people’s heads hurt.

“Suffice it say, that people didn’t believe the first part and took little solace from the second part.”

I loved all my historical and applied Econ courses at Pitt.

Africa Partners's avatar

A very interesting post that I recommend to everybody interested in macroeconomic research.

Sue Hall's avatar

On many threads, I frequently see MAGA commenters celebrating the dramatic fall in the price of gasoline since Trump took office, even thought the price of gas at the pump is virtually unchanged. Such people will believe the price of potato chips is plummeting, regardless of the actual price on the shelf.