Is The Economy As Bad As Trump Says?

Last night, my wife and I went out with a friend for a New Year’s dinner at a local, family-style restaurant outside of Springfield, MA. The tab came to $30 apiece. The night before, we took my wife’s son and his family out to dinner at a bistro-kind of place on Boston’s North Shore. The bill was $60 apiece. Earlier in the week we took my wife’s daughter and her family out to dinner at a fancy-schmancy joint in Westport, CT and the meal cost $90 apiece.

All three restaurants were jammed. I mean there wasn’t an empty table and as soon as a group finished eating and left, another group came in and sat down at the same place.

Now granted, this isn’t any kind of scientific analysis, but if all three restaurants -cheap, medium, expensive — didn’t have an empty table on two different nights this past week, could you please tell me how come I keep hearing stories about how everyone thinks the economy is for shit or worse?

Of course, how the ‘average’ American views the economy has become yet another hyper-partisan question in which the answer largely depends on how someone intends to vote. So, back in April, when Pew did a detailed survey of how Americans viewed the economy, 61% of Republicans said that the 2024 economy would be worse, whereas only 31% of Democrats agreed with that negative view of how bad things would get.