Americans Refuse To Be Happy

Consumer sentiment has dropped to its lowest level since 1952. Potential Republican voters rate the economy far more negatively than positively, while potential Democratic voters show overwhelming negative assessments. Low-income families, high-income households, students, retirees, rural voters, and urban voters all report worry and dissatisfaction about both the present and the future. Households feel worse about personal finances and the broader economy than during major past crises, including the Great Inflation, the Volcker shock, the early coronavirus pandemic, and the Great Recession. Ongoing strain includes difficulty affording child care and health care, a housing shortage reducing incomes, inflation anger triggered by grocery prices, inequality separating groups, and hiring freezes limiting young people’s career prospects.

"People are worried about the present and future. They're concerned for themselves and their neighbors. Indeed, households are feeling worse about their personal finances and the broader state of the economy than they did during the Great Inflation of the 1970s, when the cost of groceries doubled and the government was forced to ration gasoline; the Volcker shock, from 1979 to 1982, when the average interest rate on 30-year mortgages hit 18.6 percent and the country went into devastating back-to-back recessions; the early months of the coronavirus pandemic, when 200,000 firms collapsed, the unemployment rate flirted with 15 percent, and essentials such as infant formula became impossible to find; and the Great Recession, when the stock market lost half its value, the banking system teetered on the brink of implosion, and lenders foreclosed on 6 million homes."

"Headline economic statistics are failing to capture the fragility and strain that consumers are experiencing. Families are struggling to afford child care and health care. The housing shortage is eating into incomes. Inflation is pissing consumers off every time they hit the grocery store. Inequality is cleaving the haves and the have-nots. A hiring freeze is preventing young people from embarking on their chosen career."

Read at The Atlantic