“The consumer price index, a broad measure of goods and services costs, increased 0.4% for the month and 3.2% from a year ago,” CNBC reports.
“The monthly measure was in line with expectations while the 12-month reading was slightly higher.”
“The consumer price index, a broad measure of goods and services costs, increased 0.4% for the month and 3.2% from a year ago,” CNBC reports.
“The monthly measure was in line with expectations while the 12-month reading was slightly higher.”
Higher prices for essentials such as food and housing have left American voters anxious, the latest FT-Michigan Ross poll shows, as President Biden tries to convince them they are better off now than when he took office.
Wall Street Journal: “The experts were way off. They underestimated the impact of government stimulus and the resilience of consumers and businesses. And they were too skeptical of the Federal Reserve’s ability to push inflation lower without sparking a recession.”
“The economy continues to grow at a steady clip. Inflation is getting closer to the Fed’s goal of 2%, unemployment remains near a half-century low and the stock market is near record highs.”
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“Hiring kept booming in February, extending a red-hot start to the year that has renewed fears that inflation could remain stubbornly high,” the Wall Street Journal reports.
“The report offers a fresh snapshot of the U.S. economy, which has muscled through the highest interest rates in 20-plus years with consistent job growth and some of the lowest unemployment rates in a half-century.”
A new Wall Street Journal poll finds 31% of voters in the survey “said the economy had gotten better over the past two years, during the majority of Biden’s tenure, a rise of 10 percentage points from a Journal poll in December.”
“And 43% said their personal finances are headed in the right direction, a 9-point increase from the prior survey.”
“But the recent spate of rising consumer prices still weighs heavily on the public. More than two-thirds of voters say inflation is headed in the wrong direction, despite ample data showing that it has moderated.”
On the election: “Trump holds a narrow lead over Biden in a head-to-head test of the expected 2024 presidential matchup, with 47% backing Trump and 45% picking Biden, a difference within the survey’s margin of error of plus or minus 2.5 percentage points. In December, Trump led by four points.”
Ron Brownstein: “Historically, measures of consumer confidence have been a revealing gauge of an incumbent president’s reelection chances. Presidents Ronald Reagan, Clinton, and Barack Obama, as I’ve written, all saw their job-approval ratings tumble when consumer confidence fell early in their first terms amid widespread unease over the economy. But when the economy revived and consumer confidence improved later in their term, each man’s approval rating rose with it. Riding the wave of those improving attitudes, all three won their reelection campaigns, Reagan in a historic 49-state landslide.”
“By contrast, when Presidents Jimmy Carter and George H. W. Bush lost their reelection bids, declining or stagnant consumer confidence was an early augur of their eventual defeat. Collapsing consumer confidence amid the coronavirus pandemic in 2020 also foreshadowed Trump’s defeat, after sustained optimism about the economy had been one of his greatest political strengths during his first three years.”
Financial Times: “Inflation in the United States and the 20-country eurozone is easing, fueling speculation that central banks may cut interest rates later this year after record-high rates since the Covid-19 pandemic and Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.”
“U.S. inflation eased to 2.4 percent in the year to January, according to data published yesterday on personal consumption expenditures, slipping from December’s rate of 2.6 percent.”
Pew Research: “No single issue stands out after the economy. Nearly three-quarters of Americans (73%) rate strengthening the economy as a top priority. That is considerably larger than the shares citing any other policy goal.”
“Immigration has propelled the U.S. job market further than just about anyone expected, helping cement the country’s economic rebound from the pandemic as the most robust in the world,” the Washington Post reports.
“That momentum picked up aggressively over the past year. About 50 percent of the labor market’s extraordinary recent growth came from foreign-born workers between January 2023 and January 2024, according to an Economic Policy Institute analysis of federal data. And even before that, by the middle of 2022, the foreign-born labor force had grown so fast that it closed the labor force gap created by the pandemic, according to research from the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco.”
A new Monmouth poll finds just 33% of Americans feel they are benefiting from the current boom in the U.S. economy, a lower number than during the pre-Covid boom years
David Leonhardt: “A common lament from Democrats is: Why do so many Americans vote against their economic interests?”
“It’s an understandable question in many ways. Even though the Republican Party favors tax cuts for the rich and cuts in government programs that benefit most Americans, Republican candidates now win most working-class voters (defined as people without a bachelor’s degree).”
“But the question also exposes a lack of self-awareness on the political left. After all, many liberals vote against their economic interests, too. The country’s wealthiest suburbs, as well as vacation spots like the Hamptons, generally vote Democratic despite the party’s belief in taxing the rich.”
“These patterns are a reminder that Americans, across ideological groups, care about more than just economic policy — and voting on these other beliefs is not irrational. Climate change, for instance, matters enormously. So do abortion, guns, crime, education, immigration and foreign policy.”
Inflation rose more than expected in January as stubbornly high shelter prices weighed on consumers, CNBC reports.
Nate Silver: “For almost a quarter-century, a majority of voters have consistently thought the country is on the wrong track. There are many indications of a rise in poor mental health (and equally many hypotheses for why that’s happened). Many Americans have existential concerns about the long-term future for reasons ranging from environmental degradation to runaway artificial intelligence.”
“Fundamentally, Mr. Biden’s challenge is that it’s hard to persuade voters who are used to constant doomscrolling that it’s Morning in America again. The incumbency advantage seems to be declining; it’s been 40 years since a president won re-election by a double-digit margin.”
“But there is good news for Mr. Biden: Voter perceptions about the economy are not just vibes — in fact, consumer sentiment has tracked the objective data well. That data, particularly the pocketbook numbers that were the weak point before, has begun to improve, and that leaves the door open for a potential second Biden term.”
“The prices consumers pay in the marketplace rose at an even slower pace than originally reported,” CNBC reports.
“Revisions to the consumer price index showed that the broad basket of goods and services measured increased 0.2% on the month, less than the originally reported 0.3%.”
CNN: “The significant gulf between a string of positive economic indicators and the public’s stubbornly grim sentiment about the US economy has been the subject of the president’s frequent inquiries when he has spoken with members of his economic team in recent weeks.”
“That disconnect looms large over Biden’s political prospects, with White House advisers and campaign officials acknowledging that how Americans feel about the economy could be decisive in determining whether the president can win a second term in November.”
Jonathan Chait: “That the economy is in such fantastic shape makes it all the more bizarre that Biden faces this dilemma. It is true that inflation spiked during the first two years of his presidency, and voters apparently have not forgiven him. Innumerable analyses have delved into the apparently fatal effect on the voters’ psyche that inflation has caused.”
“But inflation has fallen back to pre-Covid levels. Interest rates remain elevated, at least for the time being. Meanwhile, nearly everything else about the economy remains fantastic. Wages are growing much faster than price levels (which was not true earlier in Biden’s term). They are growing faster for low-income workers than for affluent ones. The unemployment rate is at historic lows.”
“It may be the case that voters will decide they care more about the Covid inflation surge than anything else that’s happening in the economy. But there’s no universal law of politics that says inflation is the only economic fact that matters to people, and people who are angry about inflation will continue to feel angry even after it stops.”
“The public’s long-held pessimism about the economy shows signs of easing since last year, a new CNN poll conducted by SSRS finds. But even with the uptick, many Americans’ views of the economy – and the nation as a whole – remain bleak.”
“Only 35% of Americans say that things in the country today are going well, but that’s an improvement from the 28% who felt positively about the state of affairs last fall. And while just 26% of Americans say they feel the economy is starting to recover from the problems it faced in the past few years, that’s also up from 20% last summer and 17% in December 2022.”
“The blowout job growth in January adds fuel to President Joe Biden’s pitch to voters that the economy is solidly recovering under his watch,” Politico reports.
“But it also probably shuts the door on an interest rate cut by the Federal Reserve next month, which many Wall Street investors and Democrats have been pressing for as inflation eases.”
Taegan Goddard is the founder of Political Wire, one of the earliest and most influential political web sites. He also runs Political Job Hunt, Electoral Vote Map and the Political Dictionary.
Goddard spent more than a decade as managing director and chief operating officer of a prominent investment firm in New York City. Previously, he was a policy adviser to a U.S. Senator and Governor.
Goddard is also co-author of You Won - Now What? (Scribner, 1998), a political management book hailed by prominent journalists and politicians from both parties. In addition, Goddard's essays on politics and public policy have appeared in dozens of newspapers across the country.
Goddard earned degrees from Vassar College and Harvard University. He lives in New York with his wife and three sons.
Goddard is the owner of Goddard Media LLC.
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