“A man hears what he wants to hear….” Judd Legum wonders why President Joe Biden gets no credit for what on paper is a good economy: 1. The unemployment rate is 3.5% The U.S. has added an average of 312K jobs every month for the last year GDP growth has been 2.0% or higher for a year Inflation is down to 3.2% If the U.S. economy is doing well, why do so many Americans say it’s terrible? 2. But an August survey by Quinnipiac University found that 71% of Americans describe the economy as “not so good” or “poor.” Just 3% say the economy is excellent. What explains this discrepancy? If the U.S. economy is doing well, why do so many Americans say it’s terrible?The leading economic indicators show the U.S. economy is performing well, but most Americans still believe economic conditions are extremely poor — as if the country was mired in a deep recession. Wha…https://popular.info/p/if-the-us-economy-is-doing-well-why 3. One factor is partisanship. More people today will rate the economy as poor if they don’t like the person in the White House, regardless of economic conditions. So with Biden in the White House, a lot of Republicans are going to say the economy is bad, no matter what. Americans’ expectations about the economy jumped 13 points after Donald Trump’s election in 2016. So it goes. 4. But only 45% of Americans lean Republican, so partisanship is not the only factor. Another factor: millions of Americans are mired in low-paying jobs, watching the fruits of their…