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Why Is It a Surprise That America Is Gloomy After a Devastating Pandemic? Why Is It a Surprise That America Is Gloomy After a Devastating Pandemic?
(about 3 hours later)
​​ “Why is everyone so grumpy?” my colleagues Peter Coy and Binyamin Appelbaum asked last month, broaching the subject that has preoccupied confused economists and anxious Democrats.​​ “Why is everyone so grumpy?” my colleagues Peter Coy and Binyamin Appelbaum asked last month, broaching the subject that has preoccupied confused economists and anxious Democrats.
American G.D.P. is booming, unemployment is near historic lows and inflation increasingly appears to be under control, such that even notorious inflation scolds have declared that a once improbable economic “soft landing” is imminent. But if every conventional top-line measure of the health of the economy is strong, why are so many Americans so despondent about the state of the country and its future, with poll after poll showing deep dissatisfaction with the state of the economy?American G.D.P. is booming, unemployment is near historic lows and inflation increasingly appears to be under control, such that even notorious inflation scolds have declared that a once improbable economic “soft landing” is imminent. But if every conventional top-line measure of the health of the economy is strong, why are so many Americans so despondent about the state of the country and its future, with poll after poll showing deep dissatisfaction with the state of the economy?
The outsize effect of inflation has been the most commonly offered hypothesis in debates over the “vibe-cession”: While the inflation rate has slowed considerably, prices are stable only at much higher levels than even three years ago. Other theories: that partisanship is clouding our judgment, that the media is shoving too much bad news down our throats and that the grimmest takes invariably take over TikTok. There are other propositions, too, each weedsier than the next: that wage gains powered by pandemic relief were reversed when that stimulus was withdrawn, that rent and the cost of homeownership are driving generational despair and so on.The outsize effect of inflation has been the most commonly offered hypothesis in debates over the “vibe-cession”: While the inflation rate has slowed considerably, prices are stable only at much higher levels than even three years ago. Other theories: that partisanship is clouding our judgment, that the media is shoving too much bad news down our throats and that the grimmest takes invariably take over TikTok. There are other propositions, too, each weedsier than the next: that wage gains powered by pandemic relief were reversed when that stimulus was withdrawn, that rent and the cost of homeownership are driving generational despair and so on.
But in fishing for causes, an obvious contributor is often overlooked: the pandemic itself. It not only killed more than a million Americans but also threw much of daily life and economic activity and public confidence into profound disarray for several years, scarring a lot of people and their perceptions of the country, its capacities and its future.But in fishing for causes, an obvious contributor is often overlooked: the pandemic itself. It not only killed more than a million Americans but also threw much of daily life and economic activity and public confidence into profound disarray for several years, scarring a lot of people and their perceptions of the country, its capacities and its future.
When Americans are asked whether the country is on the right track, or whether they themselves are optimistic or pessimistic, they don’t treat the query like a trivia quiz about the last quarter’s G.D.P. growth or the Black unemployment rate or even the size of their own paychecks or stock portfolios. They are effectively responding to the therapist’s query: How are things? They answered that question according to one set of patterns, stretching back decades. And the pattern did not begin to shift only when inflation peaked in late spring 2022, or when pandemic relief was relaxed in fall 2021, or when supply-chain issues first arose earlier that year. They began answering differently in 2020, as the scale and duration of the pandemic came into view.
For decades, surveys about the economy were such an accurate gauge of economic fundamentals that, practically speaking, there was little need to distinguish between the two.