DHis defining question in American politics was asked 44 years ago this month. A week before the 1980 presidential election, Ronald Reagan and Jimmy Carter joined each other for a televised debate. A former Hollywood actor, Reagan proved a deadly Washington adage. At the end, he spoke into the camera: “Next Tuesday, you will all go to the polls. You stand there at the polling station and decide. More than 80 million Americans watched at home. “When you make that decision … ask yourself: Are you better off than you were four years ago?” Is it easier to buy things, he asked, is unemployment low?
Days later, voters gave their answer, handing Reagan a 44-state landslide. Every presidential race has been largely framed by his simple, deadly question. If you hear it in the closing stages of this election, you will understand the great mystery of why the race is so close.
Are Americans better off than they were four years ago? As every mainstream economist will say: you bet. Many go further. “I hesitate to say this at the risk of sounding too much,” wrote Mark Jandy, the respected chief economist at Moody's, a few days ago. “But … there's no denying it: It's one of the best-performing economies in my 35+ years as an economist.” Growth: Above. Jobs: Above. Salary: Increase. Your home is worth: Above. Stock prices: Bullish. Inflation: Falling. Lending rates: Declining.
In 2020, Donald Trump warned that his defeat would create “depression”. Today, even as Germany and Japan face recession, the press toasts the US economy with “superstar status”. Ask Americans if they still feel better, and many answer: No.
According to Reagan's law, this election should be in Kamala Harris' bag. As Joe Biden's number two, he can claim co-authorship for this climb. Instead, he's neck and neck with a criminal (and never forget: Three weeks after Election Day, a judge will decide whether Donald Trump should be jailed. Stormy Daniels was paid) On the economy, Trump consistently polls ahead of Harris. The problem for her to win is failure.
How did it come about? It's one of the most important questions of our time, and yet, no matter how hard they scratch their heads, Washington's best can't come up with a good answer. Many in the center describe it as a PR problem: either Biden fails to take credit or voters are too dumb to realize how good things are. But another suggestion emerges in a new report from a progressive think tank, Cooperative Democracy. Its argument should be heeded by Keir Starmer and the European left.
Growth, jobs, wages – but over a much longer time frame – authors examine the same economic dashboard as everyone else. Behind each diagram lies the implicit question: Are you, your family, your community better off than the four of you? years Before, but two, three, four Decades Before? And for many, the numbers say: no.
Take the biggest one: pay. For teachers, clerical workers, sales representatives and the vast majority of American workers, whether white or blue-collar, wages have remained stable – not for four or 20 years – but for much of the past half-century. The average hourly earnings of seven out of 10 American workers have barely risen since Richard Nixon was in the White House, defying inflation.
For the average American worker and their families and their cities, the economy continues to stagnate, no matter who wins the White House, no matter which justices land on the Supreme Court, no matter which analysts pronounce it boom or bust.
Biden has spent trillions on boosting the economy and adapting to the climate crisis. He strengthened unions and intervened in strikes. The graphs show it has had an impact – but it's a small improvement at the end of a line that otherwise points unrepentantly down. Americans are better off than they were four years ago, and many in 2020 are suffering.
Reagan destroyed their unions, Bill Clinton opened their trade barriers, George Bush Jr. sent their children to fight and die overseas, Barack Obama bailed out Wall Street and Trump ran the famous defense scam. Real wages of “production and non-supervisory workers” have only risen in 2020 over what they were in 1973. It's not because they're not producing: the U.S. economy continues to produce less almost every year. It's just that most of the benefits have gone up.
“Even if Trump loses, America is very vulnerable to bad imitations the next time he wins,” says Joe Guinan, president of the Democratic Alliance. The only way to get rid of Trump, JT Vance, and the pluto-populists is to make the economy more equal by giving workers a greater share of the wealth they produce.
I checked in with Mike Stout to see what it was like. We first spoke at a restaurant in Pittsburgh in 2012, when Obama won re-election. Mike and his wife, Steffi, worked in Pennsylvania's steel industry with good union wages and pensions. They went to Washington for Obama's first inauguration and stood in the January cold. They had faith.
The Stouts did everything right. They worked hard and saved and spent $50,000 to put their children through university. In 2012, their daughter Maura was working at a downtown hotel for $14 an hour, the same amount her father earned in 1978. Even then, she doubted that she and her husband would enjoy her parents' standard of living.
She lost that hotel job during the pandemic, Mike said, and works from her one-bedroom apartment. Her job is chasing people for their debts, even though she keeps her head above water at $18 an hour. Now in her 30s, she's separated from her husband, and Mike blames money problems. As for his son Mike, he cared for his wife and their children, who had stage 4 cancer. Mike has health insurance, which is considered good fortune in America, but the top-up fees are eye-watering, and he now works two jobs.
“They're teetering on a ledge 60 stories up,” Stout said. “Small nuances — a recession or a rebound in prices — are thrown out the window.”
Stouts' careers have been frozen for years. At the root of democratic capitalism is an old promise: Tomorrow will be better than today. But that promise was broken long ago for Mike's family and the families of many of his friends. He knows plenty of former steelworkers in this swing state that will vote for Trump next month. Of course he is a liar, “but at least he lies to their faces rather than ignoring them”.
And what about Mike? “Trump or Harris: It's a big uni-party,” he said. “Wall Street runs this country.”
