Gas Prices Are Up. Americans Feel Down.
The job market and the stock market are booming. But Americans are gloomy about the economy. Gas prices are a big reason why.
The U.S. job market is in the best shape it’s been in for more than a decade. Employees have far more leverage than they’re used to and are using it to switch jobs or demand raises to stay. Wage growth is brisk. The stock market is booming. And while GDP growth slowed substantially in the third quarter thanks to the resurgence of the Covid pandemic and a drop in consumer spending, we’re still in the midst of the sharpest economic V in U.S. history: never before have we seen such a steep recession followed by such a rapid recovery. In other words, labor and capital both seem to be doing well. But if you ask Americans, something is off.
That, at least, is what the results of Gallup’s most recent Economic Confidence Index survey show. Gallup regularly tracks Americans’ current assessment of economic conditions and their feelings about whether the economy is getting better or worse. Its most recent survey, released this week, found that Americans, far from feeling good about the economy, are instead as gloomy as they’ve been since May 2020, when the pandemic was still in its early stages and unemployment was spiking. Sixty-eight percent of…
