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\u201cI inherited a mess,\u201d President Trump told an audience of supporters in Georgia last Thursday, referring to the U.S. economy.\u00a0The Democrats \u201ccaused the affordability problem, and we\u2019ve solved it!\u201d he bragged. Two days earlier on Fox Business he had proclaimed an even grander achievement:\u00a0\u201cI think we have the greatest economy actually ever in history.\u201d<\/p>\n
When a president talks like that 37 weeks before the mid-term elections,\u00a0it means one thing:\u00a0\u00a0The economy is the No. 1 issue, and it\u2019s a problem for the incumbent party because a large number of voters don\u2019t believe the economy is doing well at all. The reason it\u2019s a problem is clear. History shows it never works to tell unhappy voters that they actually live in a wonderful economy, and research shows that humans are hard-wired to\u00a0believe what they feel and not what someone else tells them. Voters aren\u2019t going to change.<\/p>\n
By the numbers, the U.S. economy may not be the greatest ever, but it certainly isn\u2019t bad. Last year\u00a0it grew 2.2% adjusted for inflation, which is more than most economists expected. The\u00a0unemployment rate remains low at 4.3%, and wages have grown, though not spectacularly.\u00a0<\/p>\n
That\u2019s reality, but what counts in politics is how voters feel, and most don\u2019t feel contented. Consumer sentiment is about 20% below what it was when Trump was sworn in, according to\u00a0the University of Michigan\u2019s long-running survey\u00a0on that metric. Not everyone is gloomy. \u201cSentiment surged for consumers with the largest stock portfolios,\u201d says Michigan consumer survey director Joanne Hsu, but \u201cit stagnated and remained at dismal levels\u201d for the far more people without stocks.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Obvious question: If the economy is at least okay, why do millions of Americans think it\u2019s terrible? The answer is that our brains are not hard-wired to think like economists. We are hard-wired for survival, so we pay far more attention to bad news, and we remember it much longer, than good news. For example, the towering levels of inflation in the early 1980s traumatized consumers for years. By mid-1985, inflation had dropped from its peak of 14.8% in 1980 to just 3.8%, yet Gallup polling indicated that some 20 million adults considered inflation \u201cthe most important problem facing the U.S.\u201d<\/p>\n
That wasn\u2019t a fluke. Researchers have found that we\u2019ll pay twice as much to avoid a bad outcome as we\u2019ll pay to receive a good outcome that is quantitively the same. The possibility of a bad outcome looms larger in our minds, which is why we remember bad outcomes longer. Last year the prices of beef, dairy, coffee, shoes, clothing\u2014basic needs\u2014rose by double-digit percentages, and voters are likely to remember that pain regardless of where prices go next or how much GDP might increase. By contrast, consider how we feel about costs of certain other basic needs for many people: gasoline and propane. Those prices declined last year. Ask your friends if they knew that.<\/p>\n
As a potential preview of this year\u2019s elections, consider President George H.W. Bush\u2019s 1992 run for reelection. A brief, mild recession had occurred in his term and ended 19 months before Election Day. When campaigning season arrived, he told voters the economy was booming, and he was correct. His opponent, Bill Clinton, famously told voters, \u201cI feel your pain,\u201d and he won. He spoke to the most powerful part of the human brain.<\/p>\n
Of course, Trump isn\u2019t on the ballot this year, and last year there was no recession. Much will happen before Nov. 3. But experience suggests a strategy of telling voters the U.S. economy is the greatest in history, when their hard-wired brains tell them otherwise, will be a hard road to keeping control of Congress.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
#Trumps #greatest #economy #boasts #hurt #voters<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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