With respect to the editorial (“Americans are not all economically ignorant. They just mostly care about different measurements than elites.,” May 26) concerning what Americans do and don’t know about the economy, the Harris poll published by the British newspaper The Guardian might as well have asked how many angels can dance on the head of a pin.
Most Americans know little about meteorology, but they know when it’s raining out. Your average American is well aware of the cost of a gallon of gas or a quart of milk. They do not sit and contemplate how OPEC manages crude oil quotas, or how pasteurization works. Your typical American knows how much it costs to care for their family.
If it was the Guardian’s goal to evidence that Donald Trump supporters generally don’t know what they are talking about, it failed. Even if one believes that Trump is not fit to be president, implying that his supporters are ignorant or dim-witted is insulting and arrogant.
— Terry Takash, Western Springs
What about purchasing power?
Scott Stantis’ Sunday political cartoon drew me to the editorial about Americans and the economy.
Thank you for calling out the fallacies that we are in a recession, the stock market is down for the year and unemployment is at a 50-year high — when the opposite of each is true. Why do so many believe the opposite? One reason is that the media rarely cover the successes of the economy.
I agree that the most important economic number for most people is inflation, which really hurt most families in 2021 and 2022. But for more than a year, wages have risen so much faster than inflation that the purchasing power for many workers today is higher than it was pre-pandemic. Some fast-food chains have raised their prices higher than inflation, but the Tribune Editorial Board’s hyperbole of $100 cost for a family of four at a fast-food restaurant is way off. How many $11 Big Mac meals (burger, fries and drink) or $7 Happy Meals does your family of four eat?
— John Regan, Lemont
What news source are they using?
Our economy is doing great, and unemployment is near its lowest level in many years, but many people think we are in a recession. Where do they get their news from?
— Bob Bennett, Arlington Heights
Price of eggs versus democracy
Sunday’s editorial makes many valid points, including that Democrats do a lousy job of messaging. Properly responding would require a lengthy letter, but the conclusion I draw is that, based on polls, voters are willing to vote on using feelings and perceptions rather than consider economic facts. It also begs the question of why voters seem willing to support a morally bankrupt, compulsive liar who has demonstrated through his entire life and serial business failures that his only interest is the welfare of whom he sees in the mirror.
The COVID-19 pandemic sustained the low interest rates and inflation that came from the slow recovery under the Barack Obama administration that followed George W. Bush driving the economy off a cliff.
The ultimate consideration for voters will be: Are they willing to destroy democracy because they believe, without evidence, that the authoritarian candidate will lower the price of eggs?
— Douglas Nyhus, Frankfort
Media to blame for misperceptions
Sunday’s editorial misses the mark. The Tribune Editorial Board posits that the explanation for a huge spread between voter pessimism and the actual numbers is explained by the fact that economists look at different numbers than the public.
But the fact is that most people polled thought they personally were doing quite well, but that others were badly off. This is not caused by people looking at different numbers. Rather, the blame is on the media, which report bad news while ignoring good news.
— Alan Mills, executive director, Uptown People’s Law Center, Chicago
Infotainment industry is at fault
I think that the Sunday editorial draws the wrong conclusion. It implies that ordinary Americans are well informed and simply sort economic information differently than do those who study such things, whom the Tribune Editorial Board pejoratively describes as “elites.”
The editorial board cites the Cook Political Report before it says that “most Americans don’t see the stock market as the barometer of the economy.” Nor should they without considering other factors, but that attitude is not inferable from results of the poll that was commissioned by The Guardian. The poll results do not suggest that Americans understand the state of the stock market and are discounting it. Instead, it indicates that they believe that the market is doing quite the opposite of what it is actually doing. To me, this implies that they are, indeed, uninformed about some important economic realities.
It cannot be ignored that there is a right-leaning infotainment industry that tells its audience that the economy is bad, with an emphasis on high inflation (it being difficult to find much else about the economy that it can profitably emphasize), that people should be outraged and that it is President Joe Biden’s fault.
I suggest a little experiment. Tell the Federal Reserve that all other factors should be disregarded in the interest of achieving an annual inflation rate of 2% as soon as is possible. Of course, this would cause unemployment to rise. I want to see how long it would take, after inflation reaches 2% and unemployment is up, for Biden’s critics among the producers of newslike programming to decide that inflation being at 2% is not important and that citizens should be outraged at Biden because of high unemployment.
I doubt that this would take long, since those producers’ motives are more political than informative.
— Curt Fredrikson, Mokena, Illinois
Corporate greed is widespread
President Joe Biden has been trying to make life better for all Americans, but he can’t fix everything.
People complain about the price of food and the economy, but there are other players involved here. There are landlords who are price-gouging renters. There are corporations whose greed causes spikes in food prices. Food packaging has become smaller and fast food much pricier. Corporate greed is rampant in many areas of commerce.
— Linda Morton, Harvard
Biden is doing important work
The Sunday editorial is correct that President Joe Biden’s administration has failed to communicate its concern about the impact of inflation on middle- and working-class American families. However, it is wrong to suggest that Biden and Co. are too “elite” to grasp what those families care about.
It’s Biden who negotiated lower drug prices. It’s Biden who stopped mergers that would have raised grocery prices — and now Target, Walmart and Aldi are actually lowering them.
It’s Biden who will lower your taxes if you’re not a millionaire. It’s Biden who supports unions, which make sure wages stay ahead of prices. It’s Biden who outlawed unfair charges by banks, payday lenders and credit card companies. It’s Biden who wants to restore the child tax credit.
And if inflation was low under Donald Trump, let’s remember that was partly because the final year of his administration featured a pandemic that destroyed demand by making it impossible for people to leave the house safely.
No, Americans aren’t wrong to object to inflation, but they are misinformed about who fights it effectively. Maybe the Tribune could help with that.
— Kelly Kleiman, Chicago
Trump is no inflation fighter
Regarding the Sunday editorial on inflation: Just as the huge increase in unemployment that occurred in 2020 was due to the pandemic, the huge increase in inflation in 2021 and 2022 was due to coming out of the pandemic.
I agree it’s unfair to tag Donald Trump with the near doubling of unemployment in 2020 (from 3.6% to 6.7%), but then it’s just as unfair to tag Biden with responsibility for higher inflation. U.S. inflation was about 8% in 2022 while inflation in the United Kingdom hit 11.1% in October 2022, and Canada’s average that year was 6.8%.
Trump’s solution to controlling inflation? “Drill, baby, drill!” More oil has been produced in the U.S. since Biden became president than ever before. Trump has no interest in battling the effects of climate change that the burning of gasoline exacerbates. If elections are about the future, as the editorial board states, shouldn’t that be a concern?
High inflation post-pandemic has been attributed to the financial packages Congress passed to help the country recover. In December 2020, this included a $600 payment to each qualifying individual. Trump wanted that payment to individuals increased to $2,000. How much higher would inflation have been if Trump had gotten his way?
Trump worked to overthrow his duly elected successor. Many of those who worked closely with Trump have said he should never be allowed near the Oval Office again. I agree with Trump when, at the recent Libertarian National Convention, he said: “Don’t allow the worst president in the history of our country to come back and do the final destruction of America.”
— Kevin Coughlin, Evanston
Our democracy is under threat
Long ago, it was said that the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach. An updated, more accurate maxim, according to the Sunday editorial, is that the way to an American’s heart is through his or her wallet. Intolerably high inflation, whether actual or only perceived, trumps everything. (Pun intended.) “Hit me in the wallet, and you’re toast, Joe Biden” seems to be the overriding sentiment for many voters. Never mind that issues that strike at the heart of our very being as a democracy — in sum, the equality of all people under the law — are under grave threat if voters reject Biden in swing states.
Yet like the entranced followers of the Pied Piper of Hamelin, MAGA cult members follow Donald Trump’s seductive song and dance to our doom as a truly democratic culture and government.
Listen to your loving, caring hearts, people! Be truly responsible. Follow your good common sense.
— Fred Reklau, Oak Park
Fears of destructive protests
Like many Democrats, I hope to be elected at my state convention to go to the Democratic National Convention in Chicago to endorse Joe Biden for president. However, I am nervous about the protests. I say this because I am from the Twin Cities and work in Minneapolis where the George Floyd protests quickly devolved into riots and destruction.
One has the right to protest and demonstrate peacefully. However, one does not have the right to hurt or intimidate attendees and bystanders or ransack local businesses and destroy public property.
I ask for people to please be respectful for those of us who are trying to have a chance of a lifetime to attend a national convention and support Biden’s reelection bid.
— William Cory Labovitch, West St. Paul, Minnesota
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