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.

  • @OpenStarsEnglish
    11•25 days ago

    I find it so sad to see The Guardian of all news organizations join in on this bUt ThE eCoNoMy ThO bullshit. Fortunately it looks simply like a poorly written article, but that’s little comfort for the damaging effects it will have regardless, e.g. in my trust of The Guardian articles henceforth.

    Also, it’s not just that, when it combines clickbait headlines with the first half of the article working to obfuscate the Truth with correct but irrelevant facts - beatings will continue until moral improves - even if the second half tries to sound more balanced. Is Fox News going to be the goal now, even if only for the first half of every article, going forward?

    Average people, who don’t own stock (or if they do, don’t rely on it as their primary source of income) could care less about bUt ThE eCoNoMy ThO or even the theoretical underpinnings of inflation, and care far more about their current job security and cost of actual food. Whether the proper term of “recession” applies or if it instead is some other word that should be used to describe it, either way the economy is “not good”, so hyper-focusing on uneducated people not knowing the technical definition of “recession” doesn’t seem to be helping the situation any? Even if it sells advertising space for this article:-(.

    The AutoTL;DR summary, with no title and much of the rage-baiting removed, is much better than the actual article.