• dhork@lemmy.world
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    8 months ago

    The general economic metrics are positive, but skewed. The pandemic disrupted huge portions of the economy, and some fared better than others. Prices are up across the board, but wages aren’t up to match.

    Before the Pandemic, I remember getting 1-3% raises and getting told “we do this to match the cost of living”. Now the increase year-over-year to the cost of living is much higher, yet the raises (if they are there at all) are the same magnitude as before. Some people are much better off, though: the increased spending in the economy isn’t coming from thin air. There is a portion of the population who is doing much better, but it doesn’t extend to everyone.

    Then, you have the mess of the Housing market here. Prices have skyrocketed across the board, as well as interest rates, at least in part due to the pandemic - the government had to print a lot of money to get through it, and the corrsponding rise interest rates came so fast it even caught some banks by surprise. People who were lucky enough to buy in at the right time are doing much better.

    Now, the economy being in the state it is now is better than the alternative. Democrats need to make the case that their policies have the best chance of improving everyone’s situation, and that it would be best to have all the levers of government to do that. So it’s not just the Presidential election that is critical, but all the downballot races as well.

    • HubertManne@kbin.social
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      8 months ago

      yes this. I used to work at a university where the raises were like 1 or 2 percent below inflation. Half the years I worked there was no raise because it was low inflation times. Going into the public sector I generally got about inflation but when infaltion went haywire the raises stayed the same.