US disconnect
One of the handful of US states that will decide the November presidential election is Wisconsin, which this week plays host to the Republican convention. Known as the badger state, Wisconsin's economy has been going gangbusters lately.
Employment levels hit a record high this spring, with the state's labor-force participation rate exceeding that of the US as a whole.
The latest unemployment rate reading is 2.9%, more than a percentage point lower than the national figure.
Wisconsin workers have won bigger pay gains over the past year than the rest of the country, on average.
So President Joe Biden should be polling well ahead in the state he won, narrowly, in 2020 to help defeat predecessor Donald Trump, right?
Not quite. Trump, whose party's is crowing him as nominee this week after he survived a shock assassination attempt over the weekend, is ahead of Biden in the latest 538 and RealClearPolitics polling averages. The latest Bloomberg News/Morning Consult poll had Biden ahead, though within the margin of error.
At issue is a disconnect between economic data and how households actually feel about the economy. A Bloomberg News/Morning Consult poll this month found 62% of Wisconsin voters think the state's economy is on the wrong track, and 72% think the US economy is headed in the wrong direction.
As is the case in many parts of the country, there's a leftover impact of the cost-of-living surge that began in 2021 that continues to weigh on sentiment.
"You look at some of the cost of necessities — like rent, food, things like that — those things have been going up and they are felt much harder by medium and low income households," says Steven Deller, a professor of agricultural and applied economics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
The Milwaukee River on July 11. Photographer: Al Drago/Bloomberg
Chris Sinicki, chairwoman of the Democratic Party of Milwaukee County, says the party plans an aggressive door-knocking campaign starting later this summer to inform voters one-on-one about the strength of the economy and make the case that Biden saved it from free-fall during the pandemic.
But there's an old adage in politics: if you're explaining, you're losing.
"It's bit of an uphill battle," says Charles Franklin, director of the Marquette Law School poll. For now at least, "it's a lot of Biden not getting credit for the objectively good economy."
Need-to-Know Research
So far, disinflation has been comparatively painless for the euro zone and most of the world's largest economies, according to Germany's Bundesbank.
Gauges known as sacrifice ratios that measure observed deviations of output from trends in relation to retreats in inflation have remained markedly below the historic median, researchers wrote. They studied nearly 230 episodes of receding price pressures from 46 advanced and emerging nations since the 1960s.
While the latest round of rate increases in the euro zone noticeably damped the economy and inflation, other forces such as falling commodity prices and an end of supply-side disruptions supported the economy.
Meantime, savings and orders accumulated during the pandemic, loose fiscal policy and industrial initiatives have also bolstered demand for goods, services and labor in many places.
With such diverse forces at play, policymakers must carefully weigh potential future rate cuts and take their decisions based on incoming data, the researchers concluded.
Employment levels hit a record high this spring, with the state's labor-force participation rate exceeding that of the US as a whole.
The latest unemployment rate reading is 2.9%, more than a percentage point lower than the national figure.
Wisconsin workers have won bigger pay gains over the past year than the rest of the country, on average.
So President Joe Biden should be polling well ahead in the state he won, narrowly, in 2020 to help defeat predecessor Donald Trump, right?
Not quite. Trump, whose party's is crowing him as nominee this week after he survived a shock assassination attempt over the weekend, is ahead of Biden in the latest 538 and RealClearPolitics polling averages. The latest Bloomberg News/Morning Consult poll had Biden ahead, though within the margin of error.
At issue is a disconnect between economic data and how households actually feel about the economy. A Bloomberg News/Morning Consult poll this month found 62% of Wisconsin voters think the state's economy is on the wrong track, and 72% think the US economy is headed in the wrong direction.
As is the case in many parts of the country, there's a leftover impact of the cost-of-living surge that began in 2021 that continues to weigh on sentiment.
"You look at some of the cost of necessities — like rent, food, things like that — those things have been going up and they are felt much harder by medium and low income households," says Steven Deller, a professor of agricultural and applied economics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
The Milwaukee River on July 11. Photographer: Al Drago/Bloomberg
Chris Sinicki, chairwoman of the Democratic Party of Milwaukee County, says the party plans an aggressive door-knocking campaign starting later this summer to inform voters one-on-one about the strength of the economy and make the case that Biden saved it from free-fall during the pandemic.
But there's an old adage in politics: if you're explaining, you're losing.
"It's bit of an uphill battle," says Charles Franklin, director of the Marquette Law School poll. For now at least, "it's a lot of Biden not getting credit for the objectively good economy."
Need-to-Know Research
So far, disinflation has been comparatively painless for the euro zone and most of the world's largest economies, according to Germany's Bundesbank.
Gauges known as sacrifice ratios that measure observed deviations of output from trends in relation to retreats in inflation have remained markedly below the historic median, researchers wrote. They studied nearly 230 episodes of receding price pressures from 46 advanced and emerging nations since the 1960s.
While the latest round of rate increases in the euro zone noticeably damped the economy and inflation, other forces such as falling commodity prices and an end of supply-side disruptions supported the economy.
Meantime, savings and orders accumulated during the pandemic, loose fiscal policy and industrial initiatives have also bolstered demand for goods, services and labor in many places.
With such diverse forces at play, policymakers must carefully weigh potential future rate cuts and take their decisions based on incoming data, the researchers concluded.
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