Stop yelling at me about the economy

It’s bad and it’s not just in my head

The American economy is growing. Employers are adding jobs. Inflation is going down. The stock market is up.

But if you ask the average American about the economy, they will tell you it isn’t going well. 

In 2022, Kyla Scanlon, a former options trader turned economic educator, coined the phrase “vibecession” to encapsulate the bad feelings people have about the economy in contrast to the actual success of the economy. She wrote in her newsletter, “The overwhelming nature of it all creates a Vibecession. Where economically speaking, things are okay-ish but in reality… the vibes are off. People are feeling bad.”

According to Scanlon, feeling bad about the economy becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. And one of the ways to feel better about it all is to change your mindset.

A recent Wall Street Journal article blames not only our fickle human emotions, but also social media, and just “the media” as driving our misguided sense of economic “badness.” 

In sum, the prevailing message is that if things feel bad it’s all your fault. Have you thought about creating a little gratitude journal for your budget? Have you thought about manifesting a more affordable home?

Recently, a friend told me in frustration, “Show me someone who thinks the economy is doing so well and I’ll show you someone who hasn’t bought fruit from a grocery store recently.”

Lately, when people insist to me that America is doing well, I ask, “Doing well for whom?” Even taking into account finally easing interest rates and slowing inflation (which still means prices are going up, by the way, not down), I don’t think it’s fair to say the economy is doing well for everyone.

But often, when I complain about this economic pressure, people tell me I am repeating Trump talking points. That Biden’s done a good job and Trump is the one who will ruin the economy. But the exhaustive election-year booster-club yelling hasn’t done anything to materially change the fact that existing in America has gotten eye-wateringly expensive and it isn’t getting better.

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Grocery prices, which went up during the shutdowns of 2020, haven’t returned to normal. This is what economist Robert Reich calls “Greedflation.” As he explains on his website, “At the end of 2023, Americans were paying at least 30% more for beef, pork, and poultry products than they were in 2020. Why? Near-monopoly power! Just four companies now control processing of 80 percent of beef, nearly 70 percent of pork, and almost 60 percent of poultry. So of course, it’s easy for them to coordinate price increases. And this goes well beyond the grocery store. In 75 percent of U.S. industries, fewer companies now control more of their markets than they did twenty years ago.”

In sum, while prices went up in 2020, they haven’t come back down because companies don’t have to bring them down. 

And then there is the matter of debt. A recent inspirational story touted the fact that a Missouri 5th-grader raised enough money to cover the lunch debt for everyone in his school. But the fact that a bunch of children carry debt to eat food at the school they are legally required to attend is morally reprehensible. In one of the wealthiest nations in the world, children carry debt for having the audacity to eat.

And so many Americans are carrying crushing debt for existing. 14 million Americans have medical debt of $1,000 or more.  And half of Americans say they struggle to pay basic health-care expenses. Americans are also carrying a record amount of household debt. And Americans are increasingly burdened by student loan debt. The deal in America is that you have to go to school to get a good job, but you come out burdened with debt and offered a low salary that never seems to increase enough to even cover the rise in inflation. The Biden administration has done significant work on targeted student debt relief, but tuition prices remain steep and Republican lawsuits are seeking to stop Biden’s student debt relief program.

But it’s more than just the price of groceries and the financial hole we are all crawling out of. It’s that everything is so precarious. We are like spiders floating over the edge of a cliff. One small gust of wind and we are gone. One medical tragedy, one unexpected pregnancy or hospitalization, one bad diagnosis, one car accident, and the detente between us and our finances goes out the window.

And the pandemic left gaping wounds in the child-care industry, which haven’t been addressed at all. According to a 2023 report, 4 percent of American parents have lost their jobs due to a lack of reliable child care. And that same report shows that a lack of access to child care is costing Americans a total of $122 billion in lost wages, productivity and tax revenue. 

Aging millennials are feeling the pressure now. Entering our sandwich-generation years, caring for children and for parents, all while still struggling to afford homes and dig out from student debt, we aren’t being afforded the same opportunities as previous generations. Raises. Job stability. Affordable housing. 

Writing in The Cut about the millennial midlife crisis, columnist Amil Niazi observes something very important about the stresses on Americans, noting, “I’m not just worried about myself — I have young kids, and my parents are getting old. Can I care for everyone and myself? I have a parent who will likely require some financial assistance as they age, and I don’t know if I have those funds. (A third of Americans happen to feel the same way, and just over half plan to assist their parents financially in their retirement years. For me and many of my friends, our current retirement plan is to drop dead at work.)”

A dear friend of mine spent her whole life working toward a PhD; she has one now from a prestigious university and graduated with distinction, but she’s struggling to find a stable academic job. Another friend who has worked in high-achieving jobs is finding herself exhausted, overworked, and physically sick. 

And then there is the exhausting reality that our country, instead of funding a social safety net, is funding the bombs that are still destroying the lives and homes of children in Gaza.

It’s a system that wasn’t designed for our happiness, but for our overwork and constant grind. As we saw in the pandemic (which continues), the American mentality puts profits above people. Bosses will expect people to sacrifice their well-being to make chicken nuggets.

So, when people say the economy is improving, I once again ask, who exactly is this economy working for? Who exactly is benefiting? Because it’s not parents; it’s not people with marginalized identities, who experience gaps in wages and wealth; it’s not people who work for minimum wage; it’s not people who are ill and need health care and affordable housing; it’s not poor kids who have to eat school lunch. 

The economy is doing well for people who can afford to put money in the stock market, who can buy homes, who don’t have to check over their receipts at the grocery store or the gas station, who are lucky enough to hold the kinds of jobs that help pay for health care (and allow time off to access it). For everyone else, “Actually, the key economic indicators show you are wrong” is not a convincing argument or a helpful one.