Exclusive Harris poll for the Guardian shows 55% believe economy is shrinking, in troubling sign for president’s re-election bid

Nearly three in five Americans wrongly believe the US is in an economic recession, and the majority blame the Biden administration, according to a Harris poll conducted exclusively for the Guardian. The survey found persistent pessimism about the economy as election day draws closer.

The poll highlighted many misconceptions people have about the economy, including:

  • 55% believe the economy is shrinking, and 56% think the US is experiencing a recession, though the broadest measure of the economy, gross domestic product (GDP), has been growing.

  • 49% believe the S&P 500 stock market index is down for the year, though the index went up about 24% in 2023 and is up more than 12% this year.

  • 49% believe that unemployment is at a 50-year high, though the unemployment rate has been under 4%, a near 50-year low.

  • IsThisAnAI@lemmy.world
    91·
    2 months ago

    The US has done quite well weathering the last few years but everyone is still pissed off and blaming Biden.

    • mozz@mbin.grits.dev
      92·
      2 months ago

      I think the media has a huge amount to do with that.

      This story is exactly the same headline we’ve been seeing pretty consistently for quite a while… except, they threw in that one word “wrongly” and then gave some objective data to back it up. And yet, that one little change makes it so out of step with the rest of the coverage (which just reports the polls, somehow not factoring in that roughly 50% of the country watches “conservative” media which is openly and explicitly a propaganda operation against all Democrats no matter what at all times).

      And so, cognitive dissonance takes over, and this whole comments section is full of people freaking out about how dare they try to say with numbers that our corporate hellscape of an economy is actually moving in the right direction for the first time in God knows how long, and demanding instead to see inaccurate stories about how it’s all getting worse.