And will voters accept the good news?

whatever American consumers say about the state of the economy, they are spending as if their finances are in pretty good shape. Most recently, holiday sales appear to have been quite good.

…

Americans aren’t acting as if they’re terrified about crime. As I’ve written before, major downtowns have seen weekend foot traffic — roughly speaking, the number of people visiting the city for fun rather than work — recover to prepandemic levels, which isn’t what you’d expect if Americans were fleeing violent urban hellscapes.

  • aew360@lemm.ee
    2·
    1 year ago

    There are four big things that are making life shitty for those who find themselves in the lower class.

    1: High housing costs. This could be resolved with zoning reform and more public investments in housing. Liberals would work to resolve these issues while conservatives will be their NIMBY selves and refuse to support public housing

    2: High price of goods. Compounded by an internal labor shortage that could be alleviated by not demonizing immigrants and a series of wars that have put a strain on global trade, as well as the massive supply chain disruptions brought about by the pandemic, inflation was a given. It will take time to resolve itself, but it could be resolved more quickly if Congress could investigate corporations making record profits. That won’t happen when Republicans have as much sway as they do.

    1. Minimum wage being stagnant. The only places have raised minimum wage have been in blue parts of the country. Republicans will always refuse to raise minimum wage. They will always support businesses paying the least amount of money possible.

    2. Old-fashioned racism and sexism. Guess which party is working to revoke and has already revoked protections that prevent biased hiring and equal opportunity?

    Things won’t get better unless Republicans have zero say in how the country is governed. A 20 seat lead in the house and a 2 seat lead in the Senate is not enough when Congress is full of Manchins and Sinemas. An overwhelming blue wave could and would produce real change in the country, but it won’t happen unless we mobilize early and fight for our rights.