White House: People Say Economy Is Poor Despite Good Personal Finances Due to News Coverage

On Friday’s broadcast of MSNBC’s “All In,” White House National Economic Council Deputy Director Bharat Ramamurti argued that poll numbers on individual financial situations are strong, “but then, when you look at what people say about the state of the economy, it tends to be lower.” And “the news environment plays a role in all of this.”

Ramamurti said, “I’ll say this, if you look at surveys about how people feel about their personal financial situation, the numbers are actually really high, higher than they’ve been historically. But then, when you look at what people say about the state of the economy, it tends to be lower. And so, what explains that disjunction? It could be, in part, that they’re hearing a lot of doom and gloom on the news. One example that I like is that people a year ago were predicting that a recession was imminent, and what’s happened since then is that we’ve gained millions of jobs and the unemployment rate has dropped, and the inflation has come down. So, I do think that the news environment plays a role in all of this. But ultimately, if you look at the nuts and bolts of the economy, we have really strong consumer spending, we have really strong business investment. And remember, all of these investments that the president put in place, the infrastructure bill, the CHIPS bill, the Inflation Reduction Act and all those clean energy tax credits, they’re going to be hitting the economy in years to come, bringing jobs with them. So, in many senses, the best is yet to come.”

Follow Ian Hanchett on Twitter @IanHanchett