When It Comes To The Economy, We're Missing the Point
What voters mean when they say the economy is in bad shape.
The “Bad Vibes” Economy
The so-called “bad vibes economy” captured our attention in 2024. Many were puzzled by how macroeconomic improvements in post-pandemic America, such as strong job creation and record low unemployment, didn’t translate to voters giving the Biden/Harris administration credit for a strong economy. My research this year sheds light on an important factor that I think we’ve overlooked. Voters across the political spectrum perceive our economy unfairly benefits some over others; many would even say the economy is rigged. But voters fundamentally disagree about what is rigged, and who benefits. That’s the argument we lost.
First Things First: It’s Not All Vibes
My company, Change Research, polls regularly about issues facing Americans in their everyday lives, and the data made clear all year that Americans are struggling. In addition to lamenting inflation and higher prices, they’ve talked about the crisis of affordable housing, student loan debt that they struggle to repay, and high costs of healthcare and childcare. Young people, in particular, report deep pessimism about their economic futures. In our 2023 polling with 18-34 year olds, we learned that a majority of these voters doubt whether they’ll ever be able to retire, own a home, have as many kids as they hope for, or escape living paycheck to paycheck. It’s not just that they are struggling financially; it’s somewhat par for the course that young people are not yet as financially stable or comfortable as older people more established in their careers. What’s concerning to me is that they are so disillusioned. They doubt that they’ll ever achieve the prosperity, or even the stability, that prior generations enjoyed.
Not only do most voters report profound pain points when it comes to supporting themselves and their families, most also perceive that someone, or something, is benefiting at their expense. They just don’t agree on who is to blame. Back in February of this year, I conducted a deep-dive poll about the economy and explored what voters believe are our greatest economic problems, priorities, and solutions.
Diagnosing A Rigged System
Left-leaning voters diagnosed the main problem plaguing our economy to be systemic inequality, with wealth concentrated at the very top. In this poll, I asked voters to choose from a list what they think are the biggest problems with our economy today. 76% of Democratic voters chose “wealth inequality between the 1% and everyone else.” These voters watch millionaires, billionaires, and corporations rig the rules in their favor and rake in the profits, all while regular people struggle more and more: to afford childcare, to buy a home, to pay back student loans. For these voters, perceiving that the whole system is rigged for corporations and the ultra-wealthy may simply outweigh any macroeconomic indicators of recovery. Just because things are “getting better” doesn’t mean they perceive the system is getting any fairer. While they’re trying not to spend their whole paycheck on groceries, they’re watching the ultra-rich dine out in extravagance. The reaction to the recent high-profile killing of a healthcare C.E.O. laid bare just how frustrated Americans are with a health insurance system that rejects their coverage claims and threatens to bankrupt them over medical bills while rewarding the C-suite executives to the tune of $10 million a year.
Right-leaning voters diagnosed a different systemic problem. When asked what they considered to be the biggest problems with our economy today, 65% of Republicans said “funding overseas wars instead of domestic priorities,” and 57% said “too many people getting government handouts.” I provided a list of demographic groups and asked voters to indicate which ones make the most use of government services. 48% of registered voters, including 82% of Republicans and 48% of Independents, chose “illegal immigrants,” the most common response overall (among Democrats, this figure was 12%). Throughout my research in 2024, in polling and 1:1 interviews, I’ve repeatedly heard voters express this belief, and a great deal of resentment along with it. They perceive that immigrants are receiving large amounts of American aid and thereby being elevated above American citizens in both wealth and importance. For these voters, macroeconomic improvements may have been overshadowed by record numbers of migrants at our southern border last year, and hefty U.S. aid packages to Ukraine and Israel. As they’re waiting to checkout at the grocery store using hard-earned money, they feel they’re being cut in line by undeserving shoppers with full carts who are then getting comped at the register.
So, What Do We Do?
The discourse is rife with “hot takes” about what went wrong for Democrats in this election and how best to fix it going forward, and one of the common arguments is that we should deemphasize so-called social issues and focus exclusively on an economically populist agenda. Not only would I dispute the two assumptions embedded in that argument – that Democrats are the party disproportionately focused on social issues, and that social issues are unrelated to people’s economic freedom and wellbeing – but I’d also argue that’s not a strategically viable solution because that’s not how voters think. They don’t assess these issues in isolation.
That’s also not what our opponent was offering. Trump didn’t exactly run a laser-focused campaign that focused narrowly on people’s economic woes and sidestepped the culture wars. Ultimately, the majority of voters chose the candidate who spoke to cultural resentments or anxieties and who made scapegoating immigrants a centerpiece not only of his campaign writ large, but his economic message. Last month, Trump vowed to enact a 25% tariff on all products imported from Mexico and Canada via Executive Order on January 20th, and noted the tariffs would “remain in effect until such time as Drugs, in particular Fentanyl, and Illegal Aliens stop this Invasion of our Country!”
I’d argue that simply leaning into an economic agenda and turning away from so-called social issues is a poor strategy because that’s not what led voters to Trump; what he offers is a narrative through-line that connects both. You are struggling financially because your government is not putting Americans like you first. Your government is giving other people–immigrants, foreign governments, international alliances–a blank check and leaving you out to dry. I will change all that.
This was a very hard message to counter. Not only is it compelling on its surface, but a rebuttal of “that’s xenophobic” or “the economy is doing really well, actually” is profoundly alienating. I don’t have neat and tidy solutions to the hole Democrats find ourselves in. In general, I’m wary of anyone peddling an easy solution, particularly before we even have final data from every state that helps us complete our assessment of what actually happened. But I believe our effort has to begin with an assessment of the story voters think we are telling them, and bring it closer in line with the story we want to tell them; about what’s wrong with America, what’s right with America, and how we are going to make their lives better.