Economist Paul Krugman: 'Poor public perceptions' of US economy are 'entirely about MAGA'

In his New York Times column, liberal economist Paul Krugman has often expressed his frustration over the disconnect between the low unemployment numbers of the Biden era and the view that the U.S. economy is in terrible shape.

Krugman has often praised President Joe Biden's handling of the economy, stressing that the United States has been enjoying its lowest unemployment numbers in more than half a century. But much of the public, Krugman laments, is "sour" on the economy despite what the data shows.

In his January 9 column, Krugman offers a reason for that disconnect: the MAGA movement.

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MAGA Republicans, he observess, have been relentless in promoting the claim that the economy has fared badly under Biden.

"Poor public perception about the economy," Krugman stresses, is being promoted by MAGA Republicans who are "angry that Donald Trump isn't still president."

"Indeed," Krugman writes, "weak consumer sentiment may be almost entirely about MAGA…. It has been obvious for a while that views of the economy have become increasingly partisan. It's also clear that this partisanship is asymmetric: Republicans are much more likely than Democrats to say that the economy is good when their party holds the White House and bad when it doesn't."

On January 5, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) reported that U.S. unemployment "held at 3.7 percent in December."

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"Poor economic sentiment may not weigh on Biden because it's being driven by people who would never vote for him anyway," Krugman argues. "On the other hand, this interpretation suggests that most of the political upside of an improving economy may already be baked in, since Democrats have already accepted the good news, while Republicans never will."

The economist continues, "In any case, the general point is that you just can’t interpret surveys of economic sentiment, or for that matter anything else, without taking into account the fact that the modern G.O.P. bears no resemblance to the Republican Party of past years, or for that matter any political party in modern U.S. history.

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Read Paul Krugman's full New York Times column at this link (subscription required).