Paul Krugman and Nate Silver butt heads over the US economy
In 2022, liberal economist Paul Krugman has been bullish on the U.S. economy in his New York Times column and his Twitter threads, stressing that while inflation is a problem, unemployment has reached historic lows during the Biden era. And Krugman took exception when statistics expert and FiveThirtyEight founder Nate Silver offered a less bullish view of the economy in a Twitter thread posted on March 5.
Silver tweeted, “Real wages are declining and real disposable income has declined for 7 months in a row. The idea among some folks on here that voters are silly to be concerned about inflation and that Actually The Economy Is Great But The Media Won't Tell You is ridiculous.”
The FiveThirtyEight founder went on to say that the U.S. economy has had “weird distributional effects,” posting, “There are certainly some winners but there are also lots of losers, e.g. people on fixed incomes.”
Real wages are declining and real disposable income has declined for 7 months in a row. The idea among some folks on here that voters are silly to be concerned about inflation\nand that Actually The Economy Is Great But The Media Won't Tell You is ridiculous.pic.twitter.com/aMfU29GWVc— Nate Silver (@Nate Silver) 1649167873
This economy is creating weird distributional effects and there are certainly some winners but there are also lots of losers, e.g. people on fixed incomes or who haven't recently been able to renegotiate wages/salary. Not the media's doing that some people are unhappy about it.— Nate Silver (@Nate Silver) 1649168081
Krugman, on March 5, responded to Silver’s thread with a Twitter thread of his own, posting, “Straw man alert. Nobody is saying that voters are silly to be concerned about inflation. The question is why the bad news on inflation isn't at all offset by the good news on jobs.”
Real wages are declining and real disposable income has declined for 7 months in a row. The idea among some folks on here that voters are silly to be concerned about inflation\nand that Actually The Economy Is Great But The Media Won't Tell You is ridiculous.pic.twitter.com/aMfU29GWVc— Nate Silver (@Nate Silver) 1649167873
On April 1, the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) reported that the United States’ unemployment rate had fallen to 3.6%, which is lower than it has been in more than half a century.
Krugman posted that it is “bad faith” to overlook the jobs growth of the Biden era:
And one possible explanation is that they haven't heard that good news. According to the Navigator Survey, a plurality of Americans believe that the economy has LOST jobs over the past year 2/ https://www.politico.com/newsletters/west-wing-playbook/2022/04/01/why-bidens-jobs-boom-isnt-translating-00022422\u00a0\u2026— Paul Krugman (@Paul Krugman) 1649188385
Maybe that's because more people have heard news about higher than lower unemployment? From Michigan Survey 3/pic.twitter.com/MpNN4xDC57— Paul Krugman (@Paul Krugman) 1649188702
Here are some responses to Krugman’s thread:
Inflation hurts employed, retired, not employed. Scares everyone. New Jobs are good for new jobbers. Not very sophisticated but true, at least here in Italy— Massimo Rocca (@Massimo Rocca) 1649188945
Nor does the media state a lot of inflation is due to corporate greed.— Peg Manley (@Peg Manley) 1649188487
As someone who faithfully likes & retweets every positive news tweet from Biden, his administration, & Dem MOC, I can tell you that Dem voters are not helping either. They love to amplify attacks on the GOP, but apparently can't be bothered to retweet our good news. It's pitiful.— Demagogue Warning. Save Democracy. Crush Trumpism (@Demagogue Warning. Save Democracy. Crush Trumpism) 1649189114
Because you don\u2019t care if your neighbor is getting a job if you\u2019re getting poorer yourself.— Farberg (@Farberg) 1649188392
