Bloomberg Audio Studios, Podcasts, radio News. I'm Stephen Carol and this is Here's Why, where we take one news story and explain it in just a few minutes with our experts here at Bloomberg. Over forty years ago, Ronald Reagan asked voters a question that's shaped the political conversation for decades. Since Are you better off than you were four years ago?
Is it easier for you to go and buy things in the stores than it was four years ago? Is there more or less unemployment in the country than there was four years ago?
Fast forward to twenty twenty four, and it's still as President Clinton stratus James Carvill once said, the economy stupid and judging by how it's doing, Joe Biden should be a shoeing in November's election.
This economy has been incredibly resilient, stronger than I expected.
Consumer spending on services rose over four percent. That's like the highest in two decades. The US economy is chugging along pretty well. Yes, US exceptionalism still stands. There's a thousand things that can go wrong tomorrow. For right now, everything's in pretty good shape. The US has dodged recession, but is there a Vibe session. Here's why inflation is coming down, but voters don't seem to care. We've got our senior editor, Wendy Benjaminson with us from Washington to
help explain. High Wendy, how well can we say the US economy is doing well?
By all the measures we use here at Bloomberg and that the government uses, the economy is doing very well. Unemployment is at historic lows, Inflation the rate of inflation is coming down. The Dow Jones Industrial average hit forty thousand last week, which is a record. So in all these areas that we understand to measure the economy, the economy is doing well.
So the data is all telling us one story. But what does our latest polling tell us about how people are feeling about the economy.
Well, I think your term Vibe session was just perfect because all our Bloomberg News Morning Consult monthly pull of voters in the swing states, the states in the US that matter to the election where we don't know where the outcome is, shows that voters are deeply, deeply pessimistic about the economy and its future. And to Ronald Reagan's remark that you've cited at the top. We even ask do you feel better than you did four years ago?
And the answer is a solid resounding no. We asked by the end of the year, do you see the inflation rate getting better or worse? Fifty five percent that it would get worse. Do you feel the overall US economy is going to get better or worse? Fifty one percent said it would get worse. And then when we ask them how do you best describe your relationship with the US economy, the choice I am not doing well financially and the US economy is not doing well was
cited by forty percent of our swing state voters. So they're feeling lousy and they're going to take it out on Joe Biden.
It's a very it's complicated sort of situation. Why do we think people aren't celebrating what we are seeing in the data, which is things like, you know, the rate of inflation coming.
Down well because consumers aren't feeling it yet. So if you're going to a grocery store in Michigan and butter is still six dollars a pound, which is what you were paying in twenty twenty one, as opposed to the three dollars a pound you were paying in twenty twenty or twenty nineteen when Trump was president. You look around and think, I don't know what they're talking about at Bloomberg,
and the prices haven't come down at all. And President Joe Biden has complained that retailers and manufacturers are not lowering their prices now that they're of Inflation is coming down. But like I said, voters just aren't feeling it.
Are they blaming Joe Biden or blaming the retailers or where are they pointing the finger when it comes to them not feeling the effects of things improving.
Well, I'm glad you asked that because another question we asked is who do you blame for the state of the US economy? And I think all of us here know and people who study it know that the President of the United States actually doesn't have that much power over it. There are so many external factors, and yet the majority blame the president and they believe they were
better off under Donald Trump. And the truth is, the economy was doing fine under Donald Trump until a global pandemic hit, which Joe Biden inherited and has been trying, with varying levels of success, to get us out of that.
Is there any way to change voters' minds before polling day? Well, big question.
It is a huge question. The feelings about these two Cares candidates are so baked in that I think it would have to take a dramatic change in inflation. Those who are want to work, are working. The middle class and lower economic classes will tell you that, yes, I'm working, and I have to have two jobs to pay my rent to buy a house. This is also affecting young voters.
I should have brought up borrowing rates earlier. Interest rates are so high that people are graduating from college and they don't look forward to buying a house, and rents are tremendously high. And so I don't know how Joe Biden turns it around except to say it's going to get better. But that's a lot of trust in a politician, which Americans just don't have these days.
Yeah, it certainly is. Is this just an American thing? Do we see this phenomenon other parts of the world as well?
We are saying it across Europe and certainly in Latin America. Yes, Argentine President Malay recently was pounding his fist on a podium and saying no, I plata, there is no we own money, you know, stop printing money. We don't have it. So it is happening all over the world, and that is why I think you're seeing more and more conservative and right wing governments being elected.
Thanks very much, Wendy. That's Bloomberg's senior editor in Washington, Wendy Benjamins. In there and for more explanations like this from our team of twenty seven hundred journalists and analysts around the world, search for Quick Take on the Bloomberg website or the Bloomberg Business app. I'm Stephen Carroll, and this is here's why. I'll be back next week with more. Thanks for listening.