DJ Grothe on Facebook writes:

The Economist just did a big cover article on how great the U.S. economy is. Here is an unpaywalled version.

Real GDP is +8% vs. 2019, making “America…the only big economy that is back to its pre-pandemic growth trend.” This is compared to just 3% for Europe, 1% for Japan, and 0% for Britain.

Economists across the political spectrum (excepting the goofy ideological ones that feature on Fox News a lot) give most of the credit to the three big laws passed by Biden: the huge Infrastructure bill (that Trump always promised but never delivered), the Inflation Reduction Act, and the CHIPs Act, which provide incentives to build stuff in the U.S. And of course they credit Biden’s American Rescue Plan, too.

Good policy matters. Time for some skeptical debunking of the economic doomerism.

Biden is getting more done for the people than any president since FDR:

A smaller percentage of Americans are uninsured now than ever in our history.

Child poverty is at historic lows, thanks to Biden’s child tax credit in his American Rescue Plan.

Real wages are outpacing inflation for all socioeconomic quintiles.

The cost of living is actually going down (don’t believe the doomers)

America is energy independent for the first time in 40 years, and has been a net exporter of oil every year since 2020.

The cost of a gallon of gasoline nationwide on average is around three dollars a gallon, which is just a little higher than it was under Trump, and actually lower than it was under George W Bush and Obama.

Natural gas prices are at 10-year lows.

Wealth inequality under Biden is narrowing for the first time in almost 20 years…

The wealth of the lower two socioeconomic quintiles have seen their average household wealth increase by over 50% just since 2019.

The stock market is on an historic bull run.

Violent crime, including the murder rate, is lower than it’s been in nearly 50 years.

There is actually less illegal immigration under Biden than under Trump, believe it or not. (There are many more illegal border crossings now than under Trump, sadly, but there’s an order of magnitude more detentions and deportations under Biden than there were under Trump, which actually results in less illegal immigration now than under Trump. Immigration graph

Unemployment is at almost a 50-year low, and it’s never been lower than it is right now for Black Americans and Latinos.

Average debt-to-income ratios for American families are falling, and bankruptcies are at historic lows.

The average American household has cash savings equal to five weeks of income, which is the highest ever on record, and it’s also the record highest for the bottom half of the population by income. Savings graph

Homicide rates have decreased since Trump.Homicide graph

Things certainly aren’t perfect, but they are much better for all socioeconomic quintiles than they were in 2019, and much better by many measures than they’ve been in many many decades.

Thanks Biden!

  • 520@kbin.social
    3·
    10 months ago

    I don’t deny that he utterly fucked up his response to the pandemic, but the real measure for that is lives lost, not GDP.

      • 520@kbin.social
        2·
        9 months ago

        GDP went to hell in a hand basket across the world. I can’t think of a country that didn’t take a massive GDP hit.

        • TigrisMorte@kbin.social
          2·
          9 months ago

          And most of those were the result of not having any prevention. Entirely the fault of the guy that threw away the plan and fired the People that had been preparing to deal with it. The idiot gets no pass no matter how hard you hold your breath.

          • 520@kbin.social
            1·
            9 months ago

            And most of those were the result of not having any prevention.

            Not true. The main preventative measure for most countries was stay at home orders for all except essential workers. Working from home wasn’t much of a thing back then, so most places were absolutely caught with their pants down. Stay at home orders were unprecedented and completely unplanned for, most managers considered them unthinkable.

            This is NOT me saying those orders were anything except the right thing to do, but it did completely zero the productivity of entire industries.

            Those orders saved lives. And that is the metric we should be using. But since those particular numbers aren’t really knowable, we can instead use number of dead instead.

            Human life is more important than the economy, and I will always lambast Trump for his decision making during this critical time.

            • TigrisMorte@kbin.social
              2·
              9 months ago

              The US had virtually no one staying home. That is a myth. The spread was the result of failed 45 policy, period. When you quite carrying water for the failed response, perhaps you can be taken seriously on other points.

              • 520@kbin.social
                1·
                9 months ago

                The US had virtually no one staying home. That is a myth.

                I wasn’t talking about the US. I was talking about other countries. I literally said as much:

                The main preventative measure for most countries was stay at home orders for all except essential workers.

                The spread was the result of failed 45 policy, period.

                Never argued against this.

                When you quite carrying water for the failed response, perhaps you can be taken seriously on other points.

                When you learn to actually read the posts you respond to, perhaps you can be taken seriously at all.

                • TigrisMorte@kbin.social
                  2·
                  9 months ago

                  And other countries are relevant to Mango Mussolini being responsible for the pandemic related economic damage in America how precisely? Surely you are not attempting to move the goal posts?

                  “Trump’s presidency ended in the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic. Of course GDP was absolutely shot.”, no, no please lie some more. I’m sure that’ll make your take less obvious.

                  When you learn to accept your blatant attempt to excuse the utter disaster that 45 was is in fact obvious, perhaps you’ll get mocked less.

                  • 520@kbin.social
                    2·
                    9 months ago

                    And other countries are relevant to Mango Mussolini being responsible for the pandemic related economic damage in America how precisely? Surely you are not attempting to move the goal posts?

                    No, more like you are once again failing to read and understand.

                    My entire point, which I have already literally spelled out, is that while Trump was indeed an utter failure in leadership for pretty much all of his presidency, never mind during COVID, GDP is a shit metric to prove Trump’s ineffectiveness in the COVID pandemic, precisely because other countries that did prepare also had their GDP tank, albeit as a direct result of those measures. You can literally see that much on the graph in the thumbnail of this fucking post.

                    That is why I suggested using the number of dead from COVID, which is something the US had in alarming fucking numbers for a first world country, directly because of Trump’s fuckery.

                    When you learn to accept your blatant attempt to excuse the utter disaster that 45 was is in fact obvious, perhaps you’ll get mocked less.

                    I am literally fucking agreeing with you that Trump’s presidency was an utter disaster. I have literally spelled that much out. Time and time again. You are picking a fight where none exists.

                    Fucking. Read. Before. Responding

              • Omegamanthethird@beehaw.org
                1·
                9 months ago

                The US had virtually no one staying home.

                Can you explain what you mean by this? I assume you mean people forced to stay home by the federal government.