Fact Check: Establishment Media Say The Economy Is Awesome

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JIM WATSON/AFP via Getty Images

Claim: This is the best economy in decades.

Axios ran a story called “America’s hidden boom.” It argued that the U.S. economy is doing extraordinarily well.

The bottom line: Things haven’t been so good for so many in decades, Dean Baker of the Center for Economic and Policy Research told The New York Times.

  • “You’d have to go back to the late 1990s to find a similar era. Before that, the 1960s.”

Verdict: False.

The U.S. economy is doing terribly. Inflation is running at the worst level in 40 years.

Fifty-five percent of Americans think we’re in a recession, including a plurality of Democrats. Eighty-three percent of Americans say economic conditions are poor or not so good.

Real wages are plunging, which means that extremely tight labor market conditions are not helping American households. Unemployment is very low but it was just as low in the prepandemic Trump administration with much lower inflation.

Home affordability is nearing an all-time low. Gas prices keep setting new record highs.

This is not the best economy in decades.

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