"where the Misery Index hit all-time highs. A new survey is out today, and it reveals a populace with incredibly negative forward-looking views on the economy. This certainly is related to Trump, who per a recent AP-NORC poll, had his lowest approval rating ever on the economy (31%), which surely helped prompt president sundown to rant to the country on primetime TV this week."
"One might think this is because of our age of inequality, where this survey picks up the bulk of people struggling while the economy is held up by the wealthy (a dynamic that is true that I will dig into in the K-shaped recovery section), but the truth is that wage growth for the lowest earners has grown relative to higher earners since the pandemic."
The Michigan Consumer Sentiment survey reports highly negative forward-looking views comparable to major past crises. Much of the pessimism aligns with low presidential economic approval but is not solely politically driven, as 2025 expectations track 2022 lows. Recession indicators would typically coincide with such sentiment, yet GDP remains in growth. Simple inequality explanations fall short because wage growth for lowest earners has risen relative to higher earners since the pandemic. Income-sliced data show a large share of the new negative sentiment coming from the top income tercile, suggesting capital’s backlash against labor after a strong labor market. Multiple factors underlie current economic pessimism.
Read at Jezebel
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