Each campaign has been using their own set of data points to create a favorable economic picture of their time in office. But for many voters, their view of the economy will vary greatly on how they fit into it.
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Now, consumers are largely left with the same buying power they had four years ago rather than having seen real income gains over that time that would have helped bolster their financial picture.
Since the start of the pandemic, prices — as measured by the Consumer Price Index — are up nearly 21% and wages over that time are up just over 22%,
according to federal data. But while consumers have made up some ground, the inflation-adjusted wage growth of around 1% that consumers saw over the past four years is what they typically would have seen in a single year prior to the pandemic, said Pollak. For many workers, a salary raise has just enabled them to keep up with their expenses rather than improve their lifestyle or feel like they are getting ahead financially.
Helping drive those wages up has been a historically strong job market where demand from employers has outstripped the supply of people willing or able to do those jobs. The
unemployment rate has fallen from 6.4% when Biden came into office to 4% in May after dropping to as low as 3.4% last year, the lowest in more than five decades. During Trump’s four years in office, unemployment also steadily declined to 3.5% before surging during the pandemic to nearly 15%.