How people feel about the direction on economy appears relatively partisan - with democrats tending to feel it is "Getting Better" more than republicans until the Obama-Trump transition, only to feel like it is "Getting Better" more than republicans again once again shortly after the Biden inauguration.

Source: Civiqs

Discussion of inflation by outlets/sites/authors of all political orientations has increased. However, the Far Right media and Slightly Right media have increased their coverage of inflation more than the Far Left and Slightly Left, especially since the turn of 2021 when President Biden took office.

At its peak in March 2022, the Far Right was talking about inflation 2.4 times the rate they were Dec 2020-Feb-2021 while the Far Left was talking about inflation 1.5 times the rate they were in Dec 2020-Feb-2021. The period Dec 2020-Feb-2021 was chosen as the base because it’s roughly half before and half after Biden’s inauguration.

Source: PeakMetrics

More positive economic terms like “employment,” “jobs,” “raises,” and “wages” were actually talked about disproportionately less frequently by the Far Left in June, July, and August of 2021, but disproportionately more since December 2021. This while all other political orientations talked about it less than they did Dec 2020-Feb-2021.

Despite how critical inflation and unemployment are - we’re experiencing the highest inflation in 40 years and we’re just 10 basis points above the lowest unemployment in 50 years - the manner in which outlets with different political orientations talk about the economy changes over time. The data suggests that outlets aligned with the party in power focus on the positives yet minimize the negatives while those not aligned with the party in power do the opposite.

Source: PeakMetrics

For Q2 and Q3 of 2021, Far Right and Slightly Right outlets talked about unemployment at a disproportionately high rate relative to their base period compared to slightly left and far left. In fact, in July 2021 far right outlets talked about unemployment almost twice the amount they did Dec 2020-Feb-2021 while the Far Left talked about it at half the rate they did in Dec 2020-Feb-2021.

These differences diminished leading into 2022 with the Far Right talking about unemployment at a disproportionately low rate in April 2022 as the unemployment rate itself fell to 3.6%.

Source: PeakMetrics

Following a sharp rise during the pandemic the unemployment rate itself fell to 3.6% in March 2022 and remained there through May 2022. This is 10 basis points above its 50 year low.

Source: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics

Following a sharp decline during the pandemic 5- and 10-year breakevens rose well above their pre-pandemic levels.

Source: Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis

Despite the highest inflation in 40-years, real wages are higher than pre-pandemic as of May 2022. Real wages in May 2022, as calculated by the ratio of Avg. Hrly Earnings to CPI, is actually up 1.4% since Jan 2020.

Average Hourly Earnings are of Production and Nonsupervisory Employees, Total Private, which Paul Krugman used in his Jan 25th op-ed discussing the inflation narrative.

Source: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics

Inflation rose further in May to 8.5% over a year ago, while the rate of wages increases actually cooled slightly, rising only 6.5% compared to a year ago.

Source: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics

Shipments of manufactured durable goods in March, up ten of the last eleven months, increased $3.3 billion or 1.2 percent to $274.2 billion.

After over a 60% decline in shipments of Motor Vehicles and Parts early in the pandemic, shipments of Motor Vehicles and Parts were up 11% in nominal terms since January 2020.

Nondefense Capital Goods Excluding Aircraft shipments were up 22% over the same period.

Source: U.S. Census Bureau

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