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      Ireland prices corporation tax loss from Trump policies at €10bn

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      Ireland’s prime minister has said the country could lose €10bn (£8.35bn) in corporate tax if just three US multinationals were repatriated to America under a hostile Donald Trump administration.His remarks come just days after Trump nominated the Wall Street investor Howard Lutnick to lead the Department of Commerce with direct responsibility for trade.While Trump has already warned he would impose tariffs on EU imports, Lutnick has singled out Ireland for criticism saying “it is nonsense that Ireland of all places runs a trade surplus at our expense”.Simon Harris said if he was returned as taoiseach in Friday’s general election, he would immediately seek engagement with Trump. He has also proposed an early EU-US trade summit to avert damage in trade ties with the overall European trade bloc.“If three US companies left Ireland it could cost us €10bn [£8.5bn] in corporation tax,” Harris said on Monday while canvassing in Dundrum, Dublin.“I’m not pre-empting it, I’m not saying that’s going to happen, I’m not predicting it, but that is the level of risk that our economy is exposed to,” he said.Ten multinationals account for 60% of Ireland’s corporate tax receipts, with Microsoft, which books some global as well as EU revenues through Ireland, thought to be the single biggest contributor.Ireland’s goods trade surplus with the US is now a record €35bn with Irish goods exports up by 8% in the first eight months of 2024, boosted by the pharmaceutical and chemical sectors.Goods exported to the US totalled €45.5bn between January and August, according to the government’s Central Statistics Office, compared with imports of €11bn for the same period.Harris said he had no reason to believe that Trump was not “serious about pursuing the policies that he has campaigned on”, which includes repatriating jobs and profits that he believes should be homegrown.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionHe also referenced the Wall Street Journal article on what it said was the “US tax system blows a windfall into Ireland” fuelling savings into not just one but two sovereign wealth funds, including a €14bn windfall in back tax from Apple on the foot of a European court of justice ruling.“The Wall Street Journal front page gives an indication here” that Trump is intent on action, said Harris.However, he said Ireland would be prepared and would cope just as it did with “Brexit, Covid [and the] cost of living crisis”. More

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      Trump advisers contemplating cuts to Medicaid and other welfare programs

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      Donald Trump’s economic advisers and congressional Republicans are discussing possible cuts to Medicaid, food stamps and other government welfare programmes to cover the costs of extending the president-elect’s multitrillion-dollar 2017 tax cut.The cuts could mean new work requirements and spending caps, according to the Washington Post, citing sources involved in the talks, including aides in Trump’s transition team.Extending the tax cuts – most of which are due to expire next year – could add $4tn to the national debt, which already stands at $36tn.But Republicans fear triggering a political backlash by slashing programmes that serve an estimated 70 million Americans to pay for a tax cut that disproportionately benefits the wealthy.The 2017 tax cuts were criticised for being skewed in favour of the rich, with households in the top 1% income bracket receiving a reduction of $60,000 in 2025, compared with less than $500 for those in the bottom 60%, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.Trump campaigned on extending the 2017 reduction while also vowing to abolish taxes on tips for restaurant workers.Republicans support the extension but worry that the loss of revenue could add to government borrowing – prompting them to search for savings in others areas.In addition to safety net programme cuts, some Republicans are considering re-purposing clean energy funds passed by Democrats.The GOP has warned that the costs of Medicaid – whose claimants can include low-income people, newborns, people who are blind or disabled, and those suffering from certain illnesses – has ballooned with the expansion of the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare.Jodey Arrington, the chair of the House of Representatives’ budget committee, told reporters that a “responsible and reasonable work requirement” could save $100bn in Medicaid costs, while another $160bn could be cut by checking eligibility more than once a year.The Paragon Health Institute, a rightwing thinktank, published a study in the summer proposing other reductions that it said could save $500bn over a decade. It said rule changes to Medicaid recently enacted over the past year by the Biden administration could cost up to $135bn nationally and between $46.3bn and $82.3bn at state level over the next five years.Alterations to food stamps – officially known as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program – could take the form of limiting which items recipients can purchase with benefits or broadening work requirements. The latter proposal was floated in the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 blueprint for radically overhauling US government.Qualifying criteria are tailored to assist the poorest households, with eligibility determined by income and household size. A single person with no dependents needs to be earning less than $1,354 a month to qualify. A household with two or more people but earning $1,800 per month would also be eligible.The projected cuts to welfare entitlement programmes come as the Republicans prepare to control the White House and both chambers of Congress following this month’s election.It also coincides with Trump’s choice of Elon Musk, the Tesla and Space X entrepreneur, to head a newly formed Department of Government Efficiency along with Vivek Ramaswamy, his former Republican primary opponent, with the brief of slashing waste from federal spending. Musk has spoken of making around $2tn in spending cuts.The US is currently running a budget deficit at around 6% of its gross domestic product. The national debt held by the public is currently worth around 97% of the national economy.The non-partisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget has argued that, without major spending reductions, the deficit would widen significantly in the next 10 years, while the US national debt could soar to 143% of the economy. More

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      The great danger is that this time, Trumpism starts making sense | Randeep Ramesh

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      Donald Trump’s unpredictable style and electoral success reflect a turbulent era when neither progressives nor authoritarians have secured control. Far from signalling an autocratic takeover, his rise shows a political landscape in flux. The 2008 crash and its uneven recovery marked the decline of the old economic order. But in 2016, the rise of Trump on the right and Bernie Sanders on the left highlighted a real shift, as neoliberalism’s grip loosened, making space for once marginalised ideas.Since then, two US presidencies have acknowledged the need to rebuild an economy that supports blue-collar workers affected by free trade, immigration and globalisation. While neither administration succeeded – and paid for it at the ballot box – the result has been a growing constituency on both sides of the American political divide that takes seriously, albeit often rhetorically, economic injustice. But for any political movement to become dominant, it has to shape the core ideas that matter to everyone, not just its diehard supporters.A subtle shift is taking place: once-taboo “protectionism” is now a bipartisan issue, with Joe Biden upholding Trump’s tariffs on China. The two presidents have encouraged US companies to reshore manufacturing. Industrial policy, missing since the 1990s, and antitrust actions now find advocates on both sides of the aisle. Both Trump and Harris gauged voters’ indifference to near-trillion-dollar deficits, promising on the campaign trail to protect social security and Medicare.While the methods are shared, the goals diverge. The US became the world’s top oil and gas producer in the last decade. Biden sought to cultivate a green economy, while Trump promoted fossil fuels so aggressively that it bordered on self-parody.Biden fell short of delivering the transformation he had promised. He set out to tackle inequality, improve public services and address the climate crisis with a $4tn plan funded by taxing the wealthy – a mission to unite social liberalism with economic fairness. But his ambitious plans were shrunk by lobbying by corporate interests and resistance from centrist Democrats.After Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Biden shifted away from economic radicalism. When inflation surged, instead of controlling prices, he allowed the cost of essentials to soar, causing the steepest food-price hike since the 1970s. In 2022, the poorest 20% of Americans spent nearly a third of their income on food, while the wealthiest fifth spent just 8%. Biden avoided emergency price controls, unlike Richard Nixon who implemented them in 1971 – and won a landslide reelection the following year.Biden learned the lesson too late, promising to tackle “greedflation” as part of his reelection campaign. Once he dropped out, Harris said she would enact the “first ever federal ban” on food-price gouging. That was slamming the stable door shut long after the horse had bolted. However, in a sign that price controls were becoming mainstream in national politics, Trump promised to cap credit card interest rates.Trump’s populist rhetoric resonated with disillusioned voters, yet his first term’s policies had often mirrored the establishment he criticised, blending and betraying the US’s pro-market ideals. As the historian Gary Gerstle writes in his book The Rise and Fall of the Neoliberal Order: “If [the administration’s] deregulation, judicial appointments, and tax cuts pointed toward the maintenance of a neoliberal order … Trump’s assault on free trade and immigration aimed at its destruction.” Trump presents free trade and open borders as threats to US prosperity, advocating for strict controls that admit only goods and people aligned with American interests.The president-elect has abandoned the neoliberal tradition of keeping markets shielded from direct political influence, openly using his power to favour allies and enrich elites. While centrist Democrats support corporate interests by blocking progressive reforms, Trump aligns directly with billionaires, promoting a culture where justice serves the wealthy, prejudice is trivialised and power diminishes equality. This trickle-down bigotry will ultimately create a system where servility to power and social division become normalised, eroding fairness for everyone.Whether Trump can mobilise popular discontent over social and economic inequalities without alienating the oligarchs who support him remains an open question. In the months ahead, a struggle will unfold among factions within Trump’s circle. Economic populists such as the Republican senator Josh Hawley and the vice-president-elect, JD Vance, will differ from libertarians such as Vivek Ramaswamy and the self-interested deregulatory agenda of Elon Musk. Trump’s aim isn’t to lift all boats, but rather to lift enough to convince voters to tolerate the corruption, consumer scams and environmental degradation that enrich a plutocratic class. This strategy, boosted by a pliant mediasphere, enables him to present a party of private power as the voice of the ordinary voter.American political life often oscillates between “normal” and “revolutionary” phases – periods of stability interspersed with upheaval, where ideological shifts reshape public policy. After the crash but before Trump, the Tea Party was a rightwing populist movement frustrated by globalisation yet anti-worker in orientation. Revolutionary moments – such as the rise of nativist populism or democratic progressivism – trigger profound ideological shifts that reshape public values and policy. Trump’s victory was historic, but it is not yet ideologically cohesive or triumphant.If that changes, it could permanently shift certain constituencies. In 1948, Democratic support for civil rights led African Americans to abandon their traditional allegiance to the Republicans. They left the party of emancipation for the party of Jim Crow. Betting that working-class voters have nowhere else to go is a gamble centrist politicians will profoundly regret.For Democrats, the traditional strategy of pairing social liberalism with modest economic reform no longer connects with today’s voters. While social equality is a moral imperative, it requires bold, egalitarian economic policies to truly resonate. Until such policies take shape, political dysfunction and public frustration will persist. The pressing question now, for the US and beyond, is what vision and leadership will meet these urgent demands. More

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      The US has lost faith in the American dream. Is this the end of the country as we know it?

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      A dozen years ago – an eternity in American politics – the Republican party was reeling from its fourth presidential election loss in six tries and decided that it needed to be a lot kinder to the people whose votes it was courting.No more demonising of migrants, the party resolved – it was time for comprehensive immigration reform. No more demeaning language that turned off women and minorities – it needed more of them to run for office.“We need to campaign among Hispanic, black, Asian, and gay Americans and demonstrate we care about them too,” the party asserted in a famously self-flagellating autopsy after Barack Obama’s re-election as president in 2012.Even Dick Armey, a veteran Texas conservative, told the authors of the report: “You can’t call someone ugly and expect them to go to the prom with you.”Just one voice on the right begged to differ: Donald Trump. “Does the @RNC [Republican National Committee] have a death wish?” he asked in a tweet.View image in fullscreenHis objection received little attention at the time, but it wasn’t long before he was offering himself as flesh-and-blood proof of how wrong the autopsy was. In announcing his first campaign for president in 2015, Trump called Mexicans rapists and criminals.He demeaned a female TV moderator, Megyn Kelly, at his first Republican candidates’ debate, saying she had “blood coming out of her wherever” and later implied she was a “bimbo”. He also called for migrants to be deported en masse and for Muslims to be banned from entering the US.No serious presidential candidate had ever talked this way, and for several months, mainstream Republicans regarded his approach as electoral suicide. Even once it became apparent Trump might win the party nomination, they still feared his candidacy would go down in flames because swing voters in the presidential election would “flock away from him in droves”, as party stalwart Henry Barbour put it.Then Trump won – and American politics has not been the same since.The country has not been the same since. It’s true, the US has never been quite the shining beacon of its own imagination.On the international stage, it has frequently been belligerent, bullying, chaotic, dysfunctional and indifferent to the suffering of people in faraway nations – traits that bear some passing similarity to Trump’s leadership style.But it has also, for more than a century, been the standard-bearer of a certain lofty vision, a driver of strategic alliances between similarly advanced democratic nations intent on extending their economic, military and cultural footprint across continents.After one Trump presidency and on the eve of another, it is now clear that a once mighty global superpower is allowing its gaze to turn inward, to feed off resentment more than idealism, to think smaller.Public sentiment – not just the political class – feels threatened by the flow of migrants once regarded as the country’s lifeblood. Global trade, once an article of faith for free marketeers and architects of the postwar Pax Americana, is now a cancer eating away at US prosperity – its own foreign invasion.Military alliances and foreign policy no longer command the cross-party consensus of the cold war era, when politics could be relied upon to “stop at the water’s edge”, in the famous formulation of the Truman-era senator Arthur Vandenberg.Now the politics don’t stop at all, for any reason. And alliances are for chumps.View image in fullscreenLast week’s election was a contest between a unifying, consensus vision laid out by Kamala Harris – and by that Republican autopsy document of the pre-Trump era – and Trump’s altogether darker, us-versus-them, zero-sum vision of a world where nobody can win without someone else becoming a loser and payback is a dish best served piping hot. The contest could have gone either way – there has been much talk of a different outcome with a different Democratic candidate, or with a different process for selecting her.Still, the fact that the zero-sum vision proved so seductive says something powerful about the collapse of American ideals, and the pessimism and anger that has overtaken large swaths of the country.In 2016 and 2020, that anger was largely confined to the white working-class staring down a bleak future without the manufacturing jobs that once sustained them.Now it has spread to groups once disgusted by Trump, or whom Trump has openly disparaged – Latinos, young voters, Black men. Kelly, the TV personality memorably insulted by Trump during his first campaign, stumped for him in Pennsylvania in the closing days of the campaign. Even undocumented migrants, ostensibly facing mass deportation once the new administration takes office, have been voicing cautious support for Trump because they believe his economic policies will improve their prospects, risks and all.At first glance, this is a baffling state of affairs. How could so many Americans vote against their own self-interest, when it is plain – both from past experience and from the stated intentions of Trump and his allies – that the chief beneficiaries of the incoming administration are likely to be the billionaire class? When the depressed, disaffected communities of the rust belt can expect little if any of the relief Trump has been promising but failing to deliver for years?View image in fullscreenThe answer has a lot to do with the zero-sum mentality that Trump has sold so successfully.People across the country have lost all faith in the American dream: the notion that hard work and a desire for self-improvement are all it takes to climb up the social ladder, to own a home, to lay the foundations for the success of your children and grandchildren.They have lost their faith because the dream simply does not correspond to their lived experience.As in Britain and other post-industrial societies, too many lives are a constant struggle to get by month to month, with no end in sight to the bills and day-to-day living expenses and crippling levels of personal debt.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionThe majority of jobs in the US now require some qualification beyond high school, but college is dizzyingly expensive and dropout rates are high enough to deter many people from even starting. Medical debt in a country without a national health service is rampant. Home ownership is simply out of reach.When people think of prosperity and success, what many of them see is an exclusive club of Americans, recipients of generations of wealth who live in increasingly expensive big cities, who have the financial flexibility to get through college, find a high-paying job and come up with a down payment on a house.The fix is in, as Trump likes to say. The game is rigged, and if you’re not a member of the club at birth, your chances of being admitted are slim to none.Under such circumstances, the Democrats’ promise of consensus leadership rings largely hollow. The consensus arguably broke a long time ago, when the bursting of the housing bubble of the early 00s left many would-be homeowners crippled by debt and led to the deepest economic crisis since the Great Depression.It broke all over again during the Covid pandemic, when the economy ground to halt, unemployment rocketed and prices of everyday goods spun alarmingly out of control. Democrats have controlled the White House for 12 of the past 16 years, yet their idea of consensus has failed to reach much beyond the big-city limits.More appealing by far to those on the outside looking in are Trump’s promises of retribution, of tearing down the entire system and starting again.Those promises may also prove to be hollow over time, but to people only intermittently focused on politics as they struggle to put food on the table for their families, they feel at least fleetingly empowering. In a zero-sum world, blaming migrants for the country’s woes feels like its own kind of victory. It means some other group is at the bottom of the social heap for a change.Overlaid on this grim picture is the slow implosion of the two main political parties. The coalitions held together by Republicans and Democrats were always complicated affairs: an awkward marriage of big business and Christian fundamentalism on the right; a patchwork of union workers, racial minorities, intellectuals and, for a long time, old-guard southern segregationists on the left.Now, though, what is most apparent is not their intricacy but their weakness. The Republican party was as powerless to stop Trump’s hostile takeover in 2016 as the Democrats were to hold on to their bedrock of support in the “blue wall” states in the upper midwest – Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania.What drives American politics now is, rather, the unfettered power of money, much of it managed by groups outside party control who do not have to declare their funding sources and can make or break candidates depending on their willingness to follow a preordained set of policy prescriptions.View image in fullscreenThe sway of special interest groups is a longstanding problem in American politics; think of the pharmaceutical industry lobbying to keep drug prices higher than in any other western country, or the American Israel Public Affairs Committee spending tens of millions to keep critics of the Israeli government out of Congress.But it has grown exponentially worse since the supreme court’s 2010 Citizens United decision, which has fuelled an unprecedented growth in “dark money” – untraceable lobbying funds that far outstrip anything candidates are able to raise on their own behalf and tilt the political playing field accordingly.This, too, has given an edge to a demagogue such as Trump, whose vulgarity and bluster serve as useful distractions from a corporate-friendly policy agenda driven largely by tax cuts, deregulation and the dismantling of what Trump’s former political consigliere Steve Bannon calls the “administrative state”.The Democrats, meanwhile, can talk all they want about serving the interests of all Americans, but they too rely on dark money representing the interests of Wall Street, big tech companies and more, and are all but doomed to come off as hypocritical and insincere as a result.Two generations ago, the avatars of the civil rights movement were under no illusions about the brutal nature of the forces driving US society – “the same old stupid plan / Of dog eat dog, of mighty crush the weak”, as Langston Hughes wrote in his famous poem Let America Be America Again.The hope then was this was at least a correctable problem, that the oppressed could push back against their oppressors and create a fairer, more just world.What nobody then envisaged was that the oppressed themselves – the working class, disaffected young Black and Latino men, even undocumented manual labourers – would one day support the rise of an autocratic government willing to overthrow every sacred tenet of American public life, and even the constitution itself, with its promise of creating “a more perfect union”.Yet here we are. In January 2021, at Joe Biden’s inauguration, the young poet Amanda Gorman invoked the spirit of the civil rights era in describing “a nation that isn’t broken but simply unfinished”.It now appears that her faith was misplaced. The US we thought we knew is broken indeed, and may well be finished. More

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      If the US is heading for a soft landing, why do people feel so hard up?

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      The last few months have been filled with great news, according to US economists. Inflation is a hair’s breadth from pre-pandemic levels, unemployment is close to a 50-year low. The stock market keeps hitting record highs. The Federal Reserve cut interest rates last month, the first time since 2020. Some economists have gone so far as to say that the economy we’re living in is one of the best seen in decades.And yet, as the US heads to the polls, many Americans believe the economy stinks. It’s a disconnect that could ultimately decide who takes the White House.Paul Spehar, 62, a maintenance technician based in Daytona Beach, Florida, has seen reports that the economy is doing well but has only seen his savings chip away. His car insurance tripled over the last three years, and he had to take on $2,000 in debt to pay for the copay of a recent surgery. When Spehar retires, he will have to rely solely on Social Security.“The system doesn’t work for people like me,” Spehar said.It’s a common sentiment. In a Harris Poll conducted exclusively for the Guardian in September, nearly 50% of Americans believed that the country is experiencing a recession. Over 60% believed that inflation is increasing, and 50% believed that unemployment is increasing too. Even those who may know what the economists are saying don’t feel great: 73% said it’s hard to feel good about any positive economic news when they feel financially squeezed each month.As election day draws closer, and voters consistently say that the economy is their number one issue, the stakes of understanding why voters feel so blue has never been higher. So why do economists and everyday Americans seem to live in two different realities? The answer may come down to how they view inflation.For economists, inflation is a “nominal thing”, said Stefanie Stantcheva, an economist at Harvard. In other words, for economists, inflation is a measure – an important measure, especially for the Federal Reserve, which is tasked with adjusting monetary to control inflation. But for everyday Americans, inflation is a lived experience.“[Lived experiences] teach us a lot, and they show us that people are suffering a lot from inflation, perhaps more than the baseline numbers say,” Stantcheva said. “I think it’s very important to not just look at that number and say ‘Oh, but this is what CPI [the consumer price index, a broad measure of inflation] says.’… People have a different experience from that, and those experiences should be taken seriously.”That “nominal” number elicits feelings of anger, fear, anxiety and stress – along with a sense of inequality and injustice, when people are asked open-ended questions about how inflation makes them feel, said Stantcheva.People “think that wages are not keeping pace with prices at all, and so their standards of living are eroding,” Stantcheva said. “Inflation affects us as consumers, as workers, as asset holders, and also emotionally. And we see that lots of people, especially lower-income ones.”Inflation peaked in the summer of 2022 at 9.1% – the highest it had been since the early ’80s. It would take over two years for inflation to get back to levels under 3%. The Federal Reserve started ratcheting up interest rates, making the cost of borrowing money more expensive, to tackle rising prices. It has worked, but for many, the economic data and the reality of lived experiences have diverged.For economists, it seems likely that the Federal Reserve pulled off what they call a “soft-landing” – a rare feat where inflation goes down, but the unemployment rate remains relatively low. The opposite, a “hard-landing” – which many economists had forecast – would have meant that unemployment would go up as inflation goes down, triggering a recession.But for many Americans, this is anything but a soft-landing.Inflation coming down doesn’t mean prices have come down, which would be deflation, something economic theory says would actually be a bad sign for the economy. So prices have and will remain elevated. Food prices, for example, went up 25% between 2019 and 2023, according to the US Department of Agriculture.The impact of higher interest rates has also taken time to ripple through the economy, so in addition to inflation, Americans are also still getting hit with high interest rates. As prices increased, so did the cost of buying a home, getting a loan for a car and the rates on credit card bills.What economists call a soft-landing “is diametrically opposed to ordinary Americans, who see themselves in the middle of turbulence”, said John Gerzema, CEO of Harris Poll.While economists – and the Biden administration – celebrate low unemployment, it’s harder for everyday Americans to appreciate the good news even if they still have their jobs.“Unemployment is highly personal when it happens to you,” Gerzema said. But for most people, unemployment is not a big factor in their lives. “But inflation is personal and persistent. Every week it’s changing your benchmark.”MaryKate, 25, who requested she be identified by only her first name for fear of professional repercussions, said that she is still living at home with her parents because rent has been too expensive. When she graduated from college in 2021, it took her a year to find a full-time job with benefits, and saving up to move out has been hard. She recently got financing for a new car, which she uses to commute to work.“I didn’t intend to be at home for this long,” MaryKate said. “It’s hindering my personal growth.”MaryKate said she thinks about how her parents were able to move up from the lower middle-class to a middle-class during their life, and doesn’t feel like the mobility they experienced is possible for her.“At least in my family, that was kind of always the thought, that the next generation does better than the previous one,” she said. “I don’t know if that’s necessarily going to be the case for me.”It’s a sentiment that many Americans share. In the September Harris/Guardian poll, 42% of Americans said they are not financially better off today than their parents were at their age.The one thing that Donald Trump and Kamala Harris seem to agree on is that inflation has hurt Americans, and they are acting accordingly. It’s why Trump proposed ending taxes on tips at a rally in Las Vegas and Harris has shifted her emphasis away from Bidenomics – investing in infrastructure, boosting the US chip industry – to putting housing costs and crackdowns on price gouging at the center of her economic proposals.Gerzema says these kinds of policies are “personally relevant appeals” that focus on the granular “pixels” of the economy, not the overall picture. Purchasing power, personal sentiment on job security, student loans, the price of gas – are all pixels that make up the picture of a person’s individual economy.“I think the pixels just become so incredibly important because when you look at those, you really start to understand a different picture,” Gerzema said.Both presidential candidates seem to understand that much of the election hinges on these emotions. This week, voters will choose who they think has understood them best. More

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      ‘No social life, no plans, no savings’: Americans aren’t reaping benefits of booming US economy

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      Experts seem to agree the US economy has been on the upswing in 2024. A wave of new jobs, robust consumer spending, lower interest rates, falling inflation, impressive levels of business investment and record Wall Street highs has made the US economy “the envy of the world”.But many Americans appear to feel very little of that.Jim White, 62, an aquaculture specialist from North Carolina, said he has “given up [on] going out”.“I’ll never own a home. A new car is unthinkable,” he said. “The economy is slowly making the rich richer. Everyone else is sinking.”White is among dozens of people from all over the US who shared with the Guardian how they feel about the economy.While some expressed general optimism about stabilizing levels of inflation and reported doing well economically, scores said inflation continued to be financially crippling, with their incomes not even remotely keeping up with soaring costs for housing, food, childcare, insurance, healthcare, fuel, subscriptions and entertainment.Few seemed impressed by months of positive headlines about slowing inflation: “It’s not as if prices have come down, they’ve just stopped rising as obscenely as before,” as one woman in her 70s from Arizona, who still works part-time, put it. “Am I supposed to be happy about that?”“It’s more manageable, but prices are still too high for our wages compared to pre-pandemic,” said a 36-year-old woman from Salt Lake City who works as a research associate.Even those who felt the economy was doing very well complained of the exorbitantly high cost of living.The economy, 40-year-old Roxanne Oesch from Missouri said, felt “remarkably strong”.“Good jobs are available, interest rates are down and will come down further, and inflation has flattened out. It seems like there is a lot of good news.”But simultaneously, she added, “most people still cannot enjoy the same level of financial security they had pre-pandemic”.Alongside various young people who expressed dismay about their economic outlook were dozens of pensioners and people surviving on social security, for whom the new lower interest rates are bad news. “Interest on savings is dropping, [which is] challenging for retirees on fixed incomes,” said retired 71-year-old Paul Ames from Bellport, New York.“The US is doing a lot better than other developed economies. Gas is still way cheaper than Europe,” said Toni, a retired woman from North Florida, who was among various respondents who felt very positive about the economy because they held stock market investments that had been making healthy gains in recent months.“Things are good. The stock market has done well this year. Inflation isn’t having much impact.”“It’s great,” said 69-year-old Timothy Crowley, from Honolulu. “Investment income rising. This is the best economy on earth.”Respondents from places including New York City, Miami and Milwaukee pointed to rising levels of homelessness in their communities and felt that the US economic trickle-down model was broken.Views on who was responsible for America’s economic shortcomings were split: while some blamed the Biden administration for triggering soaring levels of inflation and rising asset prices through unprecedented interventions to keep the economy afloat during the pandemic, others blamed the previous Trump administration and the larger structural economic system propped up by Wall Street and the Republicans.Alex, a married father of two in his mid-30s from rural North Carolina, said he retrained as a welder during the pandemic, thanks to financial government assistance, but he quickly felt exploited in his new line of work.“I welded in two factories, each making millions in profits every year, and never made it off of government assistance, including food stamps and Medicaid. I’m back in school now and succumbing to the student loan vampires, to try and make it work,” he said.Alex said he has turned his back on Republicans, partly because of his economic concerns.Recent eye-wateringly high levels of inflation “were 25-percent caused by circa 15 years of quantitative easing, and 75-percent [caused] by corporate greed. I have completely abandoned the Republican party because they just refuse to rein in these economic monsters”.White, the aquaculture specialist from North Carolina, also said that he became a swing voter because of the economy.He will “vote a straight blue ticket until they turn their backs on Trump and the religious authoritarians”, White said. “I’m retiring this year and believe Trump’s tax breaks for the rich have already endangered my social security. He’s also a threat to my healthcare.”Among the respondents who expressed high levels of hopelessness were various college-educated people with established professional careers, such as architects, lawyers, engineers and medics, who said they were worried about financial insecurity, had recently been priced out of their longstanding communities or had been unable to save for retirement.“It’s horrific,” said 34-year-old Julia, a marketing professional from Washington. “It shouldn’t cost this much for basic necessities. I can’t do anything but work and go to the gym now,” she said, a remark that was echoed by many. “No social life, no plans, no savings.”“‘The US economy’ is not a meaningful or useful concept for most Americans,” said Karena Youtz, 54, a bookkeeper from Idaho. “Inflation is horrible. Around 40% of people in Idaho were fully employed and still unable to afford the cost of living here in 2019. I have no idea what that figure is now, but it’s probably much higher.”Melissa, retired, from northern California, who is disabled, reported struggling to get by on her social security payments.“Everything is too expensive, my rent keeps rising faster than my social security benefits and food prices are too high. Medical services in my rural area are far too few and far too substandard,” Melissa said.“The economy is doing fine and dandy. It’s the citizens of this country that are suffering.” More

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      Yes, Bidenomics is working here in Pennsylvania. But it might not be enough to win the White House | JoJo Burgess

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      Where I come from, “the economy” isn’t just about lines on a graph or numbers on a screen. It’s about how much money people have in their pockets and how much their groceries cost. It’s about how many shops are shuttered on their high street and whether they can afford to make the rent.In Pennsylvania, when voters go to the polls next week, the economy will be weighing very heavily on their minds. Our state will probably decide who becomes the next president of the US, and how we vote will also be a test of Joe Biden’s policies. The economy is one of the top issues for voters in our state. Many of them will be asking: am I in a better place now, compared with where I was four years ago?I come from a family of steelworkers near Pittsburgh. My father was a steelworker in the city, and so is my son. I’m also a rep for United Steelworkers, one of the largest unions in our country. As you can imagine, the most important issue in town right now is the steel deal. The Japanese steelmaker Nippon has been trying to buy US Steel for the past year, and though the company has promised to honour US Steel’s agreement with our union, we have many reasons to be doubtful.Not only is steel integral to our national security, raising questions about foreign takeovers, but there’s nothing to stop the company from cutting union jobs a few years down the line. The CEO of US Steel stands to walk away with $70m (£54m) if the deal completes. It’s the same pattern that repeats again and again: the money stays at the top, while people at the bottom are forgotten about.I’m glad that Kamala Harris has committed to blocking the sale. And I’m glad that the Biden administration has questioned the value of takeovers like these. Look at the Chips Act, or the Inflation Reduction Act: both were about spurring investment in our economy and building up productive capacity in the US.For too long, globalisation has meant a race to the bottom, with firms outsourcing labour and offshoring production to the places where it’s cheapest. Most employees have been working harder but getting paid less: from 1973 to 2013, the hourly wage for a typical worker rose just 9%, while productivity increased by 74%. No wonder so many people are exhausted and struggling to keep their heads above water.Here’s the thing: Donald Trump says he gets it, but he doesn’t. He talks about inflation killing our country under Biden, but he never says that record corporate profits are one of the drivers of inflation. He talks about the housing crisis, but then he blames the lack of affordable housing on immigrants. He is a master at spinning simple answers to complex problems, but he has no real solutions.I think most people are smarter than Trump gives them credit for. Most people have a sense that the reason daily life has become so expensive isn’t just because of the war in Ukraine or supply-chain bottlenecks. It’s because corporations got greedy, and started using inflation as cover to raise prices. If I can sell you a cup of water for $10, why would I drop the price to $7? The Democrat Pennsylvania senator Bob Casey has been campaigning explicitly on “greedflation”.It feels as though the message is cutting through, but I know plenty of steelworkers will still vote Trump, though almost all the unions have backed Harris. Where I live is rust belt territory. It’s a place that once boomed on coal, steel and cars. It’s a place that struggled to reinvent itself after the decline of the manufacturing industries, and lost a lot of jobs.View image in fullscreenSince the pandemic, we’ve been suffering. I live in Washington, a town south of Pittsburgh, where I’m also the local mayor. I’ve seen how the shift towards working from home has damaged some of our small businesses, and how our healthcare workers suffered from Covid-19.But I can also see the positives that “Bidenomics” has brought to our community, and I’m hoping these will cut through. One of the biggest complaints I hear now from residents is: “Why is there so much construction? We can’t cross the road!” Thanks to a huge boost in federal spending, with the Inflation Reduction Act earmarking billions of dollars to support infrastructure projects, there are many more cranes than there used to be.I always say, that’s infrastructure money working for us. When the Fern Hollow bridge collapsed in Pittsburgh, it was rebuilt in record time. Pennsylvania is particularly well placed to benefit from federal investment because it’s the second largest producer of energy in the US after Texas, and we need that climate spending if we’re going to transition to a clean energy economy. I’m just hoping that other voters feel the same way.

      JoJo Burgess is a steelworker in Pennsylvania and a member of the United Steelworkers union. He is also the mayor of Washington, Pennsylvania

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      in US Politics

      Were you better off four years ago? Seven US voters weigh their options

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      This story is co-published with and supported by the journalism non-profit the Economic Hardship Reporting ProjectThis election may well come down to one critical question: whether voters feel like they are better off now than they were four years ago. Although experts say important economic metrics are doing well or trending in a positive direction, some Americans may not feel it when they stress about their tight budget.Like many Americans, I’ve experienced my share of financial challenges. At the end of last year, a contract gig I’d had for five years – one that represented more than half my income – suddenly ended due to lack of funding. During the past year, other members of my household experienced a job loss or significant reduction in their work hours.Our household income is now roughly 25% of what it was two years ago. We survive on much less, with each dollar stretched thin as we’re feeling the impact of rising interest rates and the rapidly increasing cost of essentials like groceries.Much of this can be linked to the pandemic. Almost everything we buy is more expensive – in large part due to corporate greed. Businesses, including grocery stores, that hiked their prices during the pandemic kept them high. Layoffs are happening everywhere as companies that received pandemic-related assistance like Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) loans – which in some cases required them to maintain staffing levels – seem to have reached a point where they feel comfortable reducing their workforce.With the aftermath of economic uncertainty still hanging over the country, I reached out to voters to see how their financial situations will influence their decision this election.Sa’iyda Shabazz, 38View image in fullscreenLocation: Los Angeles, CaliforniaOccupation: digital media editor/creatorHousehold: lives with wife, 44, and son, 11Shabazz has become adept at financial juggling. Her total annual household income is less than $70,000 – which doesn’t go far in an area with a high cost of living. “Rent is almost $4,000 a month not counting utilities,” she says. Groceries are the family’s other biggest expense. “We spend easily $300-$400 a month for a family of three that includes a growing boy who likes fruit. Everything has gotten more expensive. Groceries, gas, rents.”Shabazz works in digital media, and says: “My opportunities to work have slowed considerably, which has majorly impacted my ability to make money and stay above water when it comes to affording life. We try to tighten the purse strings, but there aren’t any to tighten.”Shabazz plans to vote for Kamala Harris, saying: “As a low-income person, I can’t fathom voting for Trump, whose solution to current economic issues is to make other countries pay for our problems. I’m definitely paying attention to the Harris campaign’s stances on inflation, price gouging, and how she plans to handle things like grocery prices and gas prices …“I really hope that they look into the astronomical rise in housing costs. Housing eats up so much of our monthly finances, and there’s no reason for it.”Melanie Sparks, 49Location: Lexington, KentuckyOccupation: small-business ownerHousehold: lives with husband, 56, and daughter, 13.View image in fullscreenSparks, who describes her income as lower-middle to middle class, says her mortgage is her largest expense – currently almost $1,800 including the loan, home insurance and property taxes: “The payment has steadily increased every year since we bought it in 2020.” The family’s second-largest expense is food, including groceries and restaurants, which in total costs $1,200-$1,500 in a typical month.Then there are unpredictable expenses, like needing new tires or her dogs getting sick. Sparks says her business isn’t doing as well as it was a few years ago, and revenue has dropped by 20-30%: “Just about every expense has gone up, from the mortgage increasing $90 a month this summer, to the propane budget plan going up $50 a month. Car insurance is up; food costs are up; interest rates on my credit card debt went up. …“It feels like I’m drowning … We are one crisis away from going broke.”Sparks’ biggest concern this election is the economy, but she isn’t excited about the choices. “Frankly, I’m sick of the arguing and pettiness from both parties and wish we had a viable third party. I’m not confident in either candidate at this point. And I’m anxious about what will happen after the election, regardless of who wins,” she says.Anne MarshLocation: North CarolinaOccupation: nannyAnne Marsh recently moved from Texas to North Carolina with the family she nannies for, receiving a 20% raise from last year. “In 2020, when Biden/Harris were elected, I was ‘temporarily retired’ (read: unemployed), but I had a healthy inheritance to live on, thanks to my aunt and uncle,” she said. Since then, she said, prices have increased around her but she’s been using loyalty cards and other discounts to make do.There’s no doubt in Marsh’s mind about whom to support in this election. “I’m a die-hard Harris voter,” Marsh says, noting she would have voted for Biden if he had stayed in the race. “I think the president has done an incredible job of pulling us out of some of the debt that [Trump] incurred, as well as ensuring that unemployment and job growth have gone in the right directions and getting us through most of Covid without requiring us to drink bleach or use lights on our insides.”Marsh is also basing her vote on the reproductive health issues, saying: “Most of all, I’m voting for Harris and Walz because they’re actual human beings with sympathy and empathy and consideration for others, unlike their opposition.”Leigh Shulman, 52Location: Argentina, but votes as a Georgia overseas voterOccupation: author and writing mentorHousehold: lives with husband, 52, and son, 10. Also has a daughter, 20, who is away at collegeView image in fullscreenShulman, who describes her household income as upper middle-class, says her family is doing better financially than during the last year of the Trump administration: “My financial situation is better now than it was four years ago. Our investments have gone up quite a bit. I live in Argentina, where the dollar goes farther, and while inflation here has been awful, the dollar rate to peso rate means we don’t pay more for things than we did four years ago.”How does their financial situation affect her vote? “Not at all,” she says. “I’d vote for Kamala over Trump any day. To be honest, the idea of having Trump back in the White House is horrifying. He was so much worse than I thought he’d be the first time around. I can’t imagine what he’ll do this time. But this isn’t a hold-your-nose-and-vote situation for me, though. I’m actually happy to vote for Kamala. The main issues for me are women’s rights and education. Healthcare comes a close second, too. As an educator, I believe a leader who doesn’t support education wants an uneducated populace who won’t push back.”Deseri Eaton, 35Location: Marin county, CaliforniaHousehold: single mother to a 10-year-old sonOccupation: sporadic gig work; currently looking for a jobView image in fullscreenDeseri Eaton and her son are surviving on $1,000–$1,300 per month, mostly income she earns from house-sitting and pet-sitting. Her largest expense is her car payment of nearly $600 (car insurance is about another $200), and her son’s school tuition, along with utility expenses, credit cards and essentials like her son’s braces.“The thing that had the biggest impact was not getting into my master’s program. Leaving me jobless and relying on a stipend I didn’t receive. Also, not getting the free [guaranteed income] pilot money any more,” she says. Eaton had been participating in Marin county’s guaranteed income pilot program, which ended this spring: “I’m trying to get a job. Working my business as much as I can. And might surrender my vehicle, which is the biggest bill right now.”Eaton says she is currently unsure who she will vote for – with so much of her time and energy focused on basic survival, she hasn’t watched any of the debates.Jaclyn Cirinna, 26Location: FloridaOccupation: youth and juvenile justice advocateHousehold: lives aloneView image in fullscreen“The past four years have been a roller coaster, professionally and personally,” Cirinna says. She has worked most recently for a non-profit focused on justice and is pursuing full-time entrepreneurship.“Being my boss allows me to have more flexibility and control over my job security and accommodates my current health needs due to a car accident,” she says. “I moved from Massachusetts to Florida to try and reduce my cost of living, but Florida feels just as expensive.”She says many issues matter to her in this election, saying: “As a woman in her peak childbearing years, I like that Kamala Harris has made reproductive rights a central part of her campaign.” The economy and cost of living are important to her, too, especially in the wake of her recent layoff and health issues that limit the types of work she can do.“I like that VP Harris supports small businesses. I want to hear more about her strategy. Trump constantly talks about fighting inflation and making America affordable, but at what cost? I do not necessarily have faith in his ability to complete this promise. He wants to fix inflation by reducing the rights of immigrants. I do not support this. In general, I wish that both candidates talked about issues that impact everyone – I want community solutions at the forefront, not just for specific Americans. Such as inflation, gas prices, housing accessibility and affordability, food costs, it’s all connected!”Ned Barnett, 73Location: NevadaOccupation: freelance writer and writing consultantHousehold: lives with wifeNed Barnett says his income would probably be considered middle-class. “My wife and I live on social security, plus any gig work we can do,” he says. “She is a highly skilled book editor, and is currently editing a novel. I am a freelance writer and a consultant to other writers, and the money we bring in covers what social security doesn’t, but our income varies.”Barnett says one core issue is very important to him in this election: “With the economy what it is, including rent, we are definitely planning to vote with our wallets.” He notes that the presidential race “has been back and forth, but I think Trump is moving into the lead – not because he’s tamed his wild-man tweets and comments, but because my memory allows me to remember what the economy (and our lifestyle) was four years ago, versus what it is today.“When Trump was president before, our economy boomed. Now, not so much.”Barnett said he didn’t vote for Trump in 2016. “His bombast outweighed his sensible (to us) policy predictions, his tough stance internationally, and all the rest. But he’s a boor. However, we don’t like Hillary, so we voted independent. We knew it was a wasted vote, but we believe in voting. But in 2020, we’d begun to realize that there was more to Trump than Truth Social – his policies worked, the economy worked, and we got by without me having to work more than part time. Now, four years on, we can’t afford even our reduced lifestyle, and want Trump and his ‘magic wand’ back to turn things around.” More