From Politico: Voters Were Right About the Economy. The Data Was Wrong.

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13 Responses

  1. Brandon Berg
    Ignored
    says:

    This is really bad, with some pretty serious misinterpretation of statistics (e. g. assuming that everybody working part time would prefer to work full time but can’t find a full-time job). He’s also acting like he’s exposing some deep secrets, but this is stuff anyone who follows economics stats would already know.

    I’m hoping to find some time to write up a full debunking.Report

    • Jaybird in reply to Brandon Berg
      Ignored
      says:

      I would *LOVE* to read a full debunking.

      I wouldn’t mind reading a loosey-goosey one-cheeked debunking.Report

    • Philip H in reply to Brandon Berg
      Ignored
      says:

      Yeah his notion of a person working full time for minimum wage as being functionally unemployed miscalls takes my entire state’s economy down. And I think a LOT of Mississippians would disagree with that statement.

      Looking for ears to your debunk.Report

    • Chris in reply to Brandon Berg
      Ignored
      says:

      While it is true that this person at the very least plays fast and loose with some of the statistics, I think their broader message is correct. That is, viewed with traditional metrics, the economy looked pretty good last year. Viewed with expanded metrics, such as under employed, people who’ve stopped looking at work, prices of everyday goods relative to what they were a few years earlier, etc., last year’s economy looked pretty bad, at least if you were not already wealthy.

      The liberal/Democratic narrative both in the lead up to and with extra vehemence after the election, was that people were being deceived into believing that the economy was bad, and they were worse off financially than they were in 2020. In addition to being ridiculously condescending (as though people can’t look at their bank accounts and credit card statements, or the price of a new car or a home, or home repairs, or groceries, etc.), this narrative was also just wrong, and it’s good that people are trying to point this out with numbers, but it’d be better if they were using the numbers correctly.Report

  2. Marchmaine
    Ignored
    says:

    Heh… what if we wake up to find that *all* the narrators are unreliable?Report

  3. James K
    Ignored
    says:

    Noah Smith goes through a fairly thorough refutation of this in a recent post (it’s item number 2): https://www.noahpinion.blog/p/at-least-five-interesting-things-978Report

    • InMD in reply to James K
      Ignored
      says:

      I wasn’t really convinced. I think Smith is right in the sense that the government data isn’t wrong or misleading. It just isn’t measuring what is actually impacting peoples’ assessment of the economy.Report

      • Chris in reply to InMD
        Ignored
        says:

        This, which is something Smith and Stensil and the like simply can’t comprehend.Report

      • James K in reply to InMD
        Ignored
        says:

        I mean, on the facts he’s simply correct – Ludwig mishandled the data.

        Of course, that’s not the same as saying people don’t have reasons to be angry about the economy but that’s a separate issue. The reason people feel bad about the economy is that while inflation has gone down, prices are still much higher than they were 5 years ago and wages are still catching up. But nothing Smith said contradicts that.Report

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