Making Financial Headlines · Page 8
Economy Asked to Submit More Than a Campaign Slogan
· New York time
Ahead of the midterm elections, President Trump has praised the U.S. economy's performance. BBC Verify has examined inflation, jobs and economic growth to assess that picture, placing several major indicators alongside the political claims. The value of that approach is that the economy does not arrive as one universally experienced number. Prices, employment and output answer different questions, and households may care about each in different proportions. Campaign language prefers a simpler instrument panel: one enormous light marked excellent or terrible, depending on who is standing at the microphone. A serious assessment needs to keep the measures distinct. Growth describes activity, employment describes work and inflation describes changes in prices. None can automatically stand in for every other part of economic life, however convenient that might be during an interview. The political stakes make that separation more important, not less. Voters are evaluating broad claims through their own wages, bills and opportunities. An argument can sound persuasive nationally while failing to match a particular household's experience. The useful question is what each indicator establishes, rather than whether the entire economy can be fitted into a campaign sign. Economies remain stubbornly bad at obeying layout restrictions.
Read this story in the full newspaper →Satire. Not factual reporting. Read the original reporting from the linked publishers.