America's economy is booming, but Republicans are miserable
New York (CNN Business)Unemployment is shrinking. The stock market is booming. Americans are returning to the skies and even to movie theaters. And yet Republicans are deeply worried about the state of the economy.
Even though the US economy is expected to grow this year at the fastest pace in decades, consumer sentiment among self-identified Republicans is worse today than during the height of the pandemic, according to the University of Michigan.
In fact, Republicans are more pessimistic than at any point since September 2010, when the economy was just beginning to dig out of the Great Recession.
Meanwhile, consumer sentiment among self-identified Democrats is higher than at any point during the presidency of Donald Trump — even though unemployment was far lower then than it is today.
This polarization of consumer sentiment across party lines is not entirely new, but it got significantly worse during the Trump era and continues to this day.
"It didn't really matter who was elected, until Trump," said Richard Curtin, who leads the University of Michigan's closely-watched consumer sentiment surveys.
Consider what happened last fall, just before the presidential election. The University of Michigan's consumer sentiment index among Democrats stood at 72.4 in October 2020, compared with 98 for Republicans.
By the time Joe Biden was sworn in as president, sentiment among Democrats surged to 89.5, while that of Republicans plunged to 69.8. That gap widened in the months to come.
"The overall level of consumer confidence nationally didn't really change when Biden took office," Curtin said. "Democrats and Republicans just switched places."
more:
http://www.cnn.com/2021/06/29/economy/consumer-confidence-republican-democrat/index.html
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