If the Economy Is So Great, Why Are Americans So Grumpy? New Study Reckons Inflation Is Underestimated

Even if every newspaper and the President insist that Americans’ lives are getting better because of falling inflation, we know that’s not right.

AP/Susan Walsh
President Biden speaks at the National Association of Counties 2023 Legislative Conference at Washington, February 14, 2023. AP/Susan Walsh

The economy is growing, unemployment is low, wages are up, and inflation is down. However, the American people are grumpy about the state of the economy. This puzzle was just investigated by four economists. They found that people often know that something is wrong even if statistics don’t reflect the problem. In this case, people are perceiving that inflation is still, in fact, high.

For months now, Americans have been told that inflation’s downward trend, to around 3 percent from almost 9 percent annually, should make them feel good about the economy. Yet it isn’t working. A recent Gallup poll found that 63 percent say the state of the economy is getting worse and 45 percent think it’s already “poor.”

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