The vibes are getting better

 

When I've been told by news media that US majorities believe Donald Trump will be better for "the economy" than Biden and now Kamala Harris, I'm gobsmacked. 

 

And when I'm now shown, by the Financial Times via economic historian Adam Tooze that we now, slightly, think Harris would be better at the economic job, I'm also gobsmacked.

 

By the sorts of measures used by economists, the American economy has been chugging along happily for at least 12 months with something close to jobs for everyone who wants one, rising wages, low inflation, even a happy stock market (though how much this last has to do with the economy I don't know.) 

But for all that time, many survey respondents have been insisting that Trump would be better for "the economy." I can only conclude that mostly what people mean by "the economy" is confidence that they'll able to eat and have shelter, all with some degree of comfort and expectation for a future. 

Maybe sign boards advertising gas prices and perhaps boarded up storefronts figure somewhere in that, as well as Joe Biden's weak communication capacity and his age.

But the change in the polling tells me that surveys on "the economy" don't solely measure an economic reality. Apparently, in some part, they do heavily measure vibes. If we feel hopeful about the future, the world around us looks better. This can't entirely hide material realities, but it actually does help change our perceptions. (I'm sure some physicists have thoughts about how this works.)

In light of what's happening with current economic opinions, I can finally make sense of this amazing chart from last spring: 

Majorities of people polled in the electoral battleground states have thought their personal economic well-being had been getting better for a couple of years. Yet something was also convincing them that the country at large was doing poorly. I always was gobsmacked by this finding too. (As far as I know, no one has published an updated version of this question.)

Kamala Harris's attractive candidacy is apparently measurably restoring confidence in our future.