Politics Have Distorted Americans’ Views of the Economy

According to a recent survey, a majority of Republicans and a plurality of Democrats believe the US is in a recession. The question is how seriously to take their complaints.

Most Americans probably do not know the formal definition of a recession — “a significant decline in economic activity that is spread across the economy and lasts more than a few months” — but they do know that current prices of gas and food are especially high, and inflation is rising the fastest in 40 years. At the same time, unemployment is below 4% and the US economy continues to create new jobs at a rapid pace.

When it comes to the economy, Republicans tend to focus on the negative and Democrats on the positive. If the parties were intellectually consistent, it would be the opposite.

Think back to the presidency of George W. Bush. Republicans offered a consistent (albeit debatable) vision of economic success: an “ownership society” where net worth was relatively high, savings were high, and people relied on their own resources to deal with the vicissitudes of the marketplace. With secure property rights and high savings, momentary disturbances could be offset by individual economization. People could manage temporarily higher prices by consuming less or by seeking appropriate substitutes. The initial problem, to the extent there was one, was that not enough households had enough ownership and material resources.