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When Jerome Powell delivered a high-profile speech last month, the Federal Reserve chair came the closest he ever had to declaring that the inflation surge that gripped the nation for three painful years was now essentially defeated.
And not only that. The Fed’s high interest rates, Powell said, had managed to achieve that goal without causing a widely predicted recession and high unemployment.
Yet most Americans are not in the same celebratory mood about the plummeting of inflation in the face of the high borrowing rates the Fed engineered. Though consumer sentiment is slowly rising, a majority of Americans in some surveys still complain about elevated prices, given that the costs of such necessities as food, gas and housing remain far above where they were before the pandemic erupted in 2020.
The relatively sour mood of the public is creating challenges for Vice President Kamala Harris as she seeks to succeed President Joe Biden. Despite the fall of inflation and strong job growth, many voters say they’re dissatisfied with the Biden-Harris administration’s economic record—and especially frustrated by high prices.
That disparity points to a striking gap between how economists and policymakers assess the past several years of the economy and how many ordinary Americans do.
