WASHINGTON—Texas Republican Governor Greg Abbott often smacks President Joe Biden for high inflation and a looming recession—a standard GOP argument heading into the November election.
But inflation is worse in major Texas cities than across the country. Government data shows inflation at 10.2% in the Houston area and 9.4% in the Dallas area, above the latest national average of 8.5%.
Abbott and other Republican leaders make the paradoxical claim that the U.S. economy is in recession, but Republican-led regions are still booming. blamed on the high gasoline and food prices in the United States, but the same policies spurred credit for increased employment.
The governor of Texas tweeted on July 28, “Under the Biden administration, the U.S. economy is in recession. Meanwhile, Texas had the highest job growth in the nation in June, an unprecedented rate in the state’s history.” So many Texans have jobs today.”
The Associated Press has found a familiar pattern in 15 Republican-led states, with governors on Twitter praising state job growth and senators saying the entire national economy is collapsing at the same time. ‘s seemingly contradictory claims were repeated in public statements.
Republican leaders say state policies such as low tax rates and business continuity during the pandemic have helped boost employment and investment. But their argument is how job growth will be fueled by the historic infusion of federal money that began in March 2020 and continued under Biden in last year’s $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief package. They tend to ignore Taka.
Biden and his fellow Democrats have acknowledged the pain caused by inflation, which reached a 40-year high this summer. But the president stressed that a low unemployment rate of 3.5% helped the US avoid a recession. He argued that global factors such as the pandemic, fragile supply chains and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine have caused prices to skyrocket, meeting the public’s needs with an economic and climate package signed Tuesday.
Biden said in the Republican Party that “too often we pass the biggest microphone to critics and cynics who are happy to declare failure” and that those who want to make real progress do the hard work of governing. There is
Multiple surveys show voters have a hunch about the economy, with most blaming the president. Researchers say there isn’t much academic analysis to show why many voters are blaming White House policies for inflation and trying to pass to the State Capitol.
Andrew Reeves, a political science professor at the University of Washington in St. Louis, said most voters are likely to judge local and national economies differently. When it comes to state and local officials, voters form their opinions through what they observe in everyday life. But they often assess national economies through concrete numbers and political ideologies.
“The ‘national economy’ is this nebulous thing that none of us have really experienced,” Reeves said. “It’s an abstract concept. We may want to hide our partisanship of how we understand what’s happening across the country. Now that we’re in, the honeymoon is over and he owns this economy, whether directly due to his policies or not.”
Republican governors such as Ron DeSantis of Florida and Brian Kemp of Georgia have been largely unaffected by inflation, even though consumer prices are well above the national averages in both states. Inflation is 10.6% in the Miami area, 11.2% in Tampa and 11.5% in Atlanta.
What many voters in Republican states are hearing is an economic argument similar to what Biden has attempted on a national scale. Job growth and government finances are strong enough to keep people out of recession.
DeSantis dismisses Biden’s claim that the US economy remains healthy, calling it “Orwellian doublespeak.” The governor said at the Florida Airports Council meeting on Aug. 1 that the state’s budget surplus could protect it from a recession.
“We are not immune to inflation and energy prices,” said DeSantis. “Florida is open, and Florida is economically strong, so we are well positioned to meet the needs of the state no matter what Uncle Joe throws at us from Washington, DC.”
Employment growth is widespread across the country. Employment increased in 43 states over the past 12 months and remained essentially unchanged in seven states, according to data released Friday by the Bureau of Statistics.
However, the EIG, a bipartisan research group, analyzed job growth in three major Republican states (Texas, Arizona and Florida) and three major Democratic states (California, Illinois and New York). We found that Republican regions have fully recovered and are outstripping the pandemic’s total employment numbers, while Democrat states are recovering slower.
EIG President and CEO John Lettieri said inflation seemed to be the most important priority among voters, not jobs. In a world of political polarization, it is surprising to him that price concerns transcend generational, class, regional and partisan boundaries.
“There is strong unanimity that the economy is the problem, inflation is the biggest problem, and Biden is to blame,” Retieri said. “This removes all divisions. The different ways we chop up voters all respond to this in a powerful way, to some extent.”
Inflation appears to be an inevitable challenge for Biden, even as other issues such as abortion rights appear to be rallying Democratic voters. , to state why it is better at leading the economy without having to enumerate its own policies to bring down consumer prices, it can drive job growth.
Gabriel Lentz, a professor of political science at the University of California, Los Angeles, said “the best measure of what voters are personally experiencing” is a metric known as real disposable personal income. This number shows how much money people have after adjusting for taxes and inflation. That change over the past two years reflects the changing political fortunes of the Democratic Party.
When Biden signed the Pandemic Relief Act in March 2021, people’s real disposable income increased 28.7% from a year ago. Aid helped the economy recover, but some prominent economists warned it could also cause inflation. Disposal income has fallen 3.5% over the last 12 months.
Based on that number, Lenz concluded:
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