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      The Truth About America’s Economic Recovery

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      As we approach the midterm elections, most political coverage I see frames the contest as a struggle between Republicans taking advantage of a bad economy and Democrats trying to scare voters about the G.O.P.’s regressive social agenda. Voters do, indeed, perceive a bad economy. But perceptions don’t necessarily match reality.In particular, while political reporting generally takes it for granted that the economy is in bad shape, the data tell a different story. Yes, we have troublingly high inflation. But other indicators paint a much more favorable picture. If inflation can be brought down without a severe recession — which seems like a real possibility — future historians will consider economic policy in the face of the pandemic a remarkable success story.When assessing the state of the economy, what period should we use for comparison? I’ve noted before that Republicans like to compare the current economy with an imaginary version of January 2021, one in which gas was $2 a gallon but less pleasant realities, like sky-high deaths from Covid and deeply depressed employment, are airbrushed from the picture. A much better comparison is with February 2020, just before the pandemic hit with full force.So how does the current economy compare with the eve of the pandemic?First, we’ve had a more or less complete recovery in jobs and production. The unemployment rate, at 3.5 percent, is right back where it was before the virus struck. So is the percentage of prime-age adults employed. Gross domestic product is close to what the Congressional Budget Office was projecting prepandemic.This good news shouldn’t be taken for granted. In the early months of the pandemic, there were many predictions that it would lead to “scarring,” persistent damage to jobs and growth. The sluggish recovery from the 2007-9 recession was still fresh in economists’ memories. So the speed with which we’ve returned to full employment is remarkable, so much so that we might dub it the Great Recovery.Still, while workers may have jobs again, hasn’t their purchasing power taken a big hit from inflation? The answer may surprise you.In September, consumer prices were 15 percent higher than they were on the eve of the pandemic. However, average wages were up by 14 percent, almost matching inflation. Wages of nonsupervisory workers, who make up more than 80 percent of the work force, were up 16 percent. So there wasn’t a large hit to real wages overall, although gas and food — which aren’t much affected by policy, but matter a lot to people’s lives — did become less affordable.Obligatory note: There are other measures of both prices and wages, and if you pick and choose you can make the story look a bit worse or a bit better. More important, some Americans are especially exposed to prices that have gone up a lot. On average, however, there hasn’t been a huge hit to living standards.But won’t bringing inflation down require an ugly recession? Maybe, and widespread predictions of recession may be taking a toll on public perceptions. But they are predictions, not an established fact — and many economists don’t agree with those predictions. I won’t rehash that ongoing debate here, except to say that there are plausible arguments to the effect that disinflation will be much easier this time than it was after the 1970s.Despite what I’ve said, however, the public has very negative economic perceptions. Doesn’t that tell us that the economy really is in bad shape?No, it doesn’t. People know how well they, themselves, are doing. Their views about the national economy, however, can diverge sharply from their personal experience.A Federal Reserve survey found that in 2021 there was a huge gap between the rising number of people with a positive view of their own finances and the falling number with a positive view of the economy; perceptions about the local economy, which people can see with their own eyes, were somewhere in between. I suspect that when we get results for 2022 they’ll look similar.To be fair, the resurgence of inflation after decades of quiescence, combined with fears of possible recession, has unnerved many Americans. The point, however, isn’t that the public is wrong to be concerned; it is that negative public views of the economy don’t refute the proposition that the economy is doing well in many though not all dimensions.Now, I’m not suggesting that Democrats spend their final campaigning days telling voters that the economy is actually just fine. It isn’t.But Democrats shouldn’t concede that the overall economy is in bad shape, either. Some very good things have happened on their watch, above all a jobs recovery that has exceeded almost everyone’s expectations. And they have every right to point out that while Republicans may denounce inflation, Republicans have no plan whatsoever to reduce it.The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: letters@nytimes.com.Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram. More

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      French Refineries Strike May Presage a Winter of Discontent for Europe

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      Bitten by inflation, workers are demanding a greater share of the surging profits of energy giants. It’s the kind of unrest leaders fear as they struggle to keep a united front against Russia.LE HAVRE, France — The northern port city of Le Havre is less than 25 miles away from two major oil refineries. But on Friday, the pumps at many gas stations were wrapped in red and white tape, the electric price signs flashing all nines. Little gasoline was to be had.Across France, a third of stations are fully or partly dry, victims of a fast-widening strike that has spread to most of the country’s major refineries, as well as some nuclear plants and railways, offering a preview of a winter of discontent as inflation and energy shortages threaten to undercut Europe’s stability and its united front against Russia for its war in Ukraine.At the very least the strike — pitting refinery workers seeking a greater share of the surging profits against the oil giants TotalEnergies and Exxon Mobil — has already emerged as the first major social crisis of Emmanuel Macron’s second term as president, as calls grow for a general strike next Tuesday.“It’s going to become a general strike. You will see,” said Julien Lemmonier, 77, a retired factory worker stepping out of the supermarket in Le Havre on a gray and rainy morning. He warned that if the port workers followed suit, “It will be over.”Striking employees of the Total refinery on Thursday.Andrea Mantovani for The New York TimesThe widening social unrest is just what European leaders fear as inflation hits its highest level in decades, driven in part by snarls in post-pandemic global supply chains, but also by the mounting impact of the tit-for-tat economic battle between Europe and Russia over its invasion of Ukraine.Economic anxiety is palpable across Europe, driving large protests in Prague, Britain’s biggest railway strike in three decades, as well as walkouts by bus drivers, call center employees and criminal defense lawyers, and causing many governments to introduce relief measures to cushion the blow and ward off still more turbulence. Airline workers in Spain and Germany went on strike recently, demanding wage increases to reflect the rising cost of living.For France the strikes have touched a long-worn nerve of the growing disparity between the wealthy few and the growing struggling classes, as well as the gnawing worry about making ends meet in the cold winter ahead.Workers at half of the country’s eight refineries are continuing to picket for higher wages in line with inflation, as well as a cut of the sky-high profits their companies made over recent months, as the price of gasoline has surged.“The money exists, and it should be distributed,” said Pascal Morel, the regional head of Confédération Générale du Travail, or CGT, France’s second-largest union, which has been leading the strikes. “Rather than laying claim to the striking workers, we should lay claim to their profits.”Pascal Morel, the regional head of Confédération Générale du Travail, one of France’s largest unions, which has been leading the strikes. Andrea Mantovani for The New York TimesSlow to notice at first, the country was rudely awoken to the strike’s effect this week, when pumps across the country ran out of fuel, forcing frustrated motorists to hunt around and then line up — sometimes for hours — at stations that were still open. Nerves quickly frayed, and reports of fistfights between enraged drivers buzzed on the news.In Le Havre, as in the rest of the country, residents revealed mixed feelings about the strikes. Some expressed solidarity with the workers, while others complained about how a small group was holding the entire country hostage. On both sides of the divide, however, many feared the strike would spread.The State of the WarA Large-Scale Strike: President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia unleashed a series of missile strikes that hit at least 10 cities across Ukraine, including Kyiv, in a broad aerial assault against civilians and critical infrastructure that drew international condemnation and calls for de-escalation.Crimean Bridge Explosion: Mr. Putin said that the strikes were retaliation for a blast that hit a key Russian bridge over the weekend. The bridge, which links the Crimean Peninsula to Russia, is a primary supply route for Russian troops fighting in the south of Ukraine.Pressure on Putin: With his strikes on civilian targets in Ukraine, Mr. Putin appears to be responding to his critics at home, momentarily quieting the clamors of hard-liners furious with the Russian military’s humiliating setbacks on the battlefield.Arming Ukraine: The Russian strikes brought new pledges from the West to send in more arms to Ukraine, especially sophisticated air-defense systems. But Kyiv also needs the Russian-style weapons that its military is trained to use, and the global supply of them is running low.“It’s going to bring France to a standstill and I assure you it doesn’t need that,” said Fatma Zekri, 54, an out-of-work accountant.On Thursday, workers echoed the call for a general strike next Tuesday originally issued by the CGT and later supported by three other large unions. And a long-planned protest by left-wing parties over the rising cost of living scheduled for Sunday threatens to become even larger.For Mr. Macron, the strike holds obvious perils, with echoes of the social unrest of the Yellow Vest movement — a widespread series of protests that started as a revolt against higher taxes on fuel. The movement may have dissipated, but its anger has not.In Le Havre, residents revealed mixed feelings about the strikes. Some expressed solidarity with the workers, while others complained about how a small group was holding the entire country hostage.Andrea Mantovani for The New York TimesThe protests paralyzed France for months in 2018 and 2019, led by lower-middle class workers who took to the streets and roundabouts, raging against a climate change tax on gas that they felt was an insulting symbol of how little the government cared about them and their sliding quality of life.The current strikes illustrated a longstanding question that continues to torment many in the country, said Bruno Cautrès, a political analyst at the Center for Political Research at Sciences Po University — “Why do I live in a country that is rich and I am struggling?”Speaking of the president, Mr. Cautrès said, “He has not managed to answer this simple question.”After winning his re-election last April, Mr. Macron promised he would shed his reputation as a top-down ruler and govern the country in a more collaborative way.“The main risk is that he will not succeed in convincing people that the second term is dedicated to dialogue, to easing tensions,” Mr. Cautrès said.But even as he faced criticism that his government had allowed the crisis to get to this point, Mr. Macron sounded defiant on Wednesday night, saying in an interview with the French television channel France 2 that it was “not up to the president of the republic to negotiate with businesses.”The Total refinery, shuttered during a strike by workers.Andrea Mantovani for The New York TimesHis government has already forced some workers back to a refinery near Le Havre and a depot near Dunkirk.“I can’t believe that for one second, our ability to heat our homes, light our homes and go to the gas pump would be put at risk by French people who say, ‘No, to protect my interests, I will compromise those of the nation,’” he said.Still, Mr. Macron is treading a very fine line. The issue of “super profits” has become a charged one in Parliament, with opposition lawmakers from both the left and right demanding companies reaping windfalls be taxed, to benefit the greater population.Over the first half of the year, TotalEnergies made $10 billion in profit and Exxon Mobil raked in $18 billion. Western oil and gas companies have generated record profits thanks to booming energy prices, which have risen because of the war in Ukraine and allowed Russia to rake in billions in revenues even as it cuts oil and gas supplies to Europe. A recent OPEC Plus deal involving Saudi Arabia and Russia to cut production is likely to further raise prices.Earlier this week, Exxon Mobil announced that it had come to an agreement with two of four unions working at its sites, “out of a desire to urgently and responsibly to put an end to the strikes.” But the wage increase was one percentage point less than CGT had demanded, and half the bonus.In its own news release, TotalEnergies said the company continued to aim for “fair compensation for the employees” and to ensure they benefited “from the exceptional results generated” by the company.On Friday, two unions at TotalEnergies announced they had reached a deal for a 7 percent wage increase and a bonus. But CGT, which has demanded a 10 percent hike, walked out of the negotiation and said it would continue the strike.To date, Mr. Macron has been loath to tax the oil giants’ windfall profits, worrying it would tarnish the country’s investment appeal, and preferring instead that companies make what he termed a “contribution.”However, last week the government introduced an amendment to its finance bill, in keeping with new European Union measures, applying a temporary tax on oil, gas and coal producers that make 20 percent more in profit on their French operations than they did during recent years.On Thursday, France’s Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire also called on TotalEnergies to raise wages for salaried workers. And he announced that 1.7 billion euros, about $1.65 billion, would be earmarked to help motorists if fuel prices continued to rise.“It is a company that is now making significant profits,” Mr. Le Maire told RTL radio station on Thursday. “Total has paid dividends, so the sharing of value in France must be fair.”The pumps at gas stations were wrapped in red and white tape, the electric price signs flashing all nines. Andrea Mantovani for The New York TimesThe tangle of pipes and towering smokestacks of the hulking Total refinery in Gonfreville-l’Orcher, just outside of Le Havre, were eerily silent on Thursday, as union members burned wood pallets, hoisted flags and voted to continue the strike.Many believed their anger captured a building sentiment in the country, where even with generous government subsidies, people are struggling financially and are increasingly anxious about the winter of energy cutbacks. Inflation in France, though lower than in the rest of Europe, has surpassed 6 percent, jacking the prices of some basic supplies like frozen meat, pasta and tissues.“This era must end — the era of hogging for some, and rationing for others,” François Ruffin told the protesters on Thursday. Mr. Ruffin, a filmmaker turned elected official with the country’s hard-left France Unbowed party, rose to prominence with his satirical documentary film about France’s richest man, Bernard Arnault, and the loss of middle-class jobs to globalization.If anything should be requisitioned, it should be the profits of huge companies, not workers, many said at the protest sites.David Guillemard, a striker who has worked at the Total refinery for 22 years, said the back-to-work order had kicked a hornet’s nest. “Instead of calming people,” he said, “this has irritated them.” More

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      What You Need to Know About the Elections in Italy

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      The elections could produce the first government led by a woman and by a hard-right party with post-Fascist roots.ROME — Italians vote on Sunday for the first time in almost five years in national elections that will usher in a new, and polls predict, right-wing government that will face economic challenges, a deepening energy crisis, and questions about Italy’s hard line against Russia and its full-throated support for the European Union.The elections come after the national unity government of Prime Minister Mario Draghi, a darling of the European establishment who is widely credited with increasing Italy’s credibility and influence, collapsed amid a revolt in his coalition.The elections had been scheduled for February, but the premature collapse raised familiar questions about Italy’s stability and the popularity of the country’s far-right opposition, which had grown outside the unity government, and rekindled doubts about Italy’s commitment to the European Union.International markets, wary of the country’s enormous debt, are already jittery. And Italy’s support for sending arms to Ukraine, which has been influential within Europe, has emerged as a campaign issue, raising the prospect of a possible change of course that could alter the balance of power in Europe.Giorgia Meloni, the leader of the hard-right Brothers of Italy party, at a rally this month in Cagliari, Sardinia. Her party has a clear edge in opinion polls. Gianni Cipriano for The New York TimesWho is running?Despite the broad popularity of Mr. Draghi, a Eurocentric moderate, it is the populist-infused right, with a recent history of belligerence toward Europe, that has had a clear edge in the polls.Most popular of all has been the hard-right Brothers of Italy party, led by Giorgia Meloni, whose support skyrocketed as it was the only major party to remain in the opposition. If she does as well as expected, she is poised to be Italy’s first female prime minister.Ms. Meloni is aligned with the anti-immigrant and hard-right League party, led by Matteo Salvini, and Forza Italia, the center-right party founded and still led by the former prime minister Silvio Berlusconi.Italy’s election law favors parties that run in a coalition, and so the coalition on the right has an advantage over the fragmented left.The largest party on the left, the Democratic Party, is polling around 22 percent. But Ms. Meloni’s support has polled around 25 percent, and the right is expected to gain many more seats in Parliament, the basis upon which the government is composed.The once anti-establishment Five Star Movement cratered from its strong showing in 2018, when it had more than 30 percent of the vote. But after participating in three different governments spanning the political spectrum, it has lost its identity. Now headed by the former prime minister Giuseppe Conte, it has opted to run alone. In recent weeks, its poll numbers have climbed up, thanks to support in the south, which is rewarding the party for passing, and now defending, a broad unemployment benefit.A centrist party called Azione, led by a former minister, Carlo Calenda, and backed by another former prime minister, Matteo Renzi, would claim a moral victory even if it only hit 6 or 7 percent.At the Brothers of Italy rally in Cagliari. Voters’ main concerns are energy prices, inflation, the cost of living, and Italy’s policy toward Russia and Ukraine.Gianni Cipriano for The New York TimesWhat are the issues?While Ms. Meloni’s post-Fascist roots have attracted attention and prompted worries outside of Italy, few voters in Italy seem to care. The issues of the day are energy prices, inflation, the cost of living and Italy’s policy toward Russia and Ukraine.On the last issue, the conservative coalition is split. Ms. Meloni, in part to reassure an international audience that she is a credible and acceptable option, has been a consistent and outspoken supporter of Ukraine throughout the war. Even though she has been in the opposition, where she criticized coronavirus vaccine mandates, she has emerged as a key ally of Mr. Draghi on the question of arming Ukraine.Her coalition partners are less solid on the issue. Mr. Salvini, who has a long history of admiration for President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, even wearing shirts with the Russian’s face on them, has argued that the sanctions against Russia should be reconsidered.Mr. Berlusconi was once Mr. Putin’s best friend among leaders of Western Europe. He once named a bed after Mr. Putin and still argues that he could make peace.The conservative coalition has proposed cutting taxes on essential goods and energy, offering energy vouchers to workers, and renegotiating Italy’s European Union recovery funds to adjust for higher prices. It is also seeking to reinvest in nuclear energy, which Italy has not produced since the 1990s and banned in a 2011 referendum.Its leaders have proposed a deep flat tax and the elimination of unemployment benefits popular in the south — known here as the “citizens’ income.” The benefit, pushed through with much fanfare by the Five Star Movement in its first government, acts as a subsidy to the lowest-income earners.To drum up electoral support, hard-right parties have also tried to make illegal migration an issue, even though numbers are far below earlier years. They are also running to defend traditional parties from what Ms. Meloni has called gay “lobbies.”The right also wants to change the Constitution so that the president can be elected directly by voters — and not by Parliament, as is now the case.The center-left Democratic Party has argued to continue the hard line against Russia and has emphasized energy policies that focus on renewable sources, cutting costs for low and medium-income families, and installing regasification plants to increase natural gas supplies as Italy faces shortages from Russia. The party has advocated easing the path to citizenship for children of immigrants born in Italy, and wants to increase penalties for discrimination against L.G.B.T.Q. people. It also proposes introducing a minimum wage, cutting income taxes to raise net salaries, and paying teachers and health care workers better wages.The Five Star Movement is, like Mr. Salvini, dubious of a hard line against Russia and against the shipment of Italian weapons to help Ukraine. The Five Star Movement is proposing an energy recovery fund to tackle the price surge and investments in renewable energy. It is also calling for a ban on new drilling for fossil fuels.What happens after the vote?Exit polls should come out the night of the vote, but since voting places close at 11 p.m., no official results are expected to be declared until the next day, or even later. But even once the results are known, Italy will not have a new prime minister for weeks.The new members of Parliament will be confirmed and convened in Rome in the middle of October. They will then elect the speaker of the Senate and of the Lower House, and party leaders for each house.The president, Sergio Mattarella, will then begin consultations with the speakers of both houses and the parties’ representatives. The coalition that won the most votes will designate their candidate for premiership. If their candidate is able to win a majority in the newly elected Parliament, the president will appoint a potential prime minister to form a new government.Should Brothers of Italy win the most votes, as is expected, it would be difficult for its coalition parties to justify a prime minister other than Ms. Meloni. More

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      Finally, Some Good News on Inflation

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      This is not the end of inflation. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.On Wednesday, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported something we haven’t seen since the depths of the pandemic recession: a month without inflation. That is, the average price of the goods and services consumers buy was no higher (actually slightly lower) in July than it was in June.Before I get to what the latest inflation numbers mean, two notes on reactions to the report.First, there is absolutely no reason to question the numbers. There were many advance indications that this report, and probably the next few reports, would show a sharp drop in inflation. In fact, I wrote about that last week. It’s not just falling gasoline prices; business surveys point to declining inflation and supply chain problems are easing. Zero was a somewhat lower number than most observers expected, but not wildly so.Second, the enraged reaction of Republicans to the report came as something of a surprise, at least to me — not that it happened, but the form their outrage took. I expected them to accuse the Biden administration of cooking the books. Instead, most of the flailing seemed to involve a failure to understand the difference between monthly and annual numbers.When President Biden declared, accurately, that we had zero inflation in July, many on the right accused him of lying, because prices in July 2022 were 8.5 percent higher than they were in July 2021. Do they really not understand the difference? To be fair, sloppy business reporting may have contributed to their confusion — I saw many headlines to the effect that “inflation was 8.5 percent in July.” But the more fundamental issue, surely, is that it’s difficult to get people to understand something when their sloganeering depends on their not understanding it.OK, but what about the substantive implications of the Big Zero?Unfortunately, one month of zero inflation doesn’t mean that the inflation problem is solved. Economists have long known that you get a much better read on underlying inflation if you strip out highly volatile prices — normally food and energy, but there are a variety of measures of core inflation, and all of them are still unacceptably high. That’s a clear indication that the economy is running too hot. The Federal Reserve has been raising interest rates to cool things down, and nothing in Wednesday’s report should or will induce the Fed to change course.The Fed might, however, take some comfort from a different report, released Monday: the New York Fed’s monthly Survey of Consumer Expectations, which showed “substantial declines in short-, medium- and longer-term inflation expectations.”Ever since prices took off last year, Fed officials have been concerned that inflation might become entrenched. What they mean is that businesses and consumers might come to believe that large price increases are the new normal, making inflation self-perpetuating, and that getting inflation back down would require putting the economy into a severe, extended slump. That’s what most economists think happened in the 1970s, and it’s not an experience anyone wants to repeat.The good news is that there doesn’t seem to be any entrenching going on. Public expectations of future inflation are falling, not rising; financial markets also seem to anticipate much lower inflation than we’ve seen over the past year.Despite this good news, the Fed will surely keep raising rates until it sees clear evidence that underlying inflation is coming down. But it has some breathing room to be less aggressive than it might otherwise have been, waiting to see how the economic situation develops.Overall, falling inflation probably won’t have much effect on economic policy. It might, however, have big political implications.The truth, although Republicans go feral when you point it out, is that Joe Biden has presided over a huge jobs boom. Yet he has gotten no credit for that boom, possibly in part because many Americans don’t know about it, but largely because voters are focused on inflation — especially the fact that prices have risen faster than wages, reducing families’ purchasing power.Now at least that part of the story has gone into reverse. Wages are still rising fast, which is actually one reason to believe that underlying inflation remains high. But for now, at least, inflation has slowed, so workers will be seeing significant real wage gains. Indeed, average real wages rose half a percentage point in July alone.Hence G.O.P. outrage over accurate reporting on July’s inflation numbers. Republicans had been counting on high inflation, and high gas prices in particular, to deliver big gains for their party in the midterm elections. Suddenly, however, the economic facts have a liberal bias: Gas prices are plunging, inflation is down, and real wages are up.Will these facts make a difference in November? I have no idea. But the current hysteria on the right shows that Republicans are worried that they might.The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: letters@nytimes.com.Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram. More

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      These Days, ‘Help Wanted’ Has So Many Meanings

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      Gail Collins: Bret, let’s relax and talk about long-term goals that we totally do not share. For instance, how would you feel about raising the minimum wage to $15 an hour?Bret Stephens: Why not raise the standard of living for everyone by making the minimum wage $100? Just kidding. I think the correct figure is $0.Gail: If your goal is a self-supporting populace that doesn’t depend on government aid, you’ve got to make sure employers are shelling out at least minimal survival salaries. The current bottom line is $7.25 an hour. Nobody can live on that.Bret: I’m taking my $0 cue from a famous Times editorial from 1987, which made the case that “those at greatest risk from a higher minimum wage would be young, poor workers, who already face formidable barriers to getting and keeping jobs.” The editorial may be old but the economic logic is right. Raising the minimum wage is a well-intentioned idea that won’t help its intended beneficiaries. It will hurt them by giving companies like McDonald’s additional incentives to move toward even more automation.Tell me why I’m wrong.Gail: Well, I could quote an editorial from 2020 that said raising the minimum wage “ought to be a priority of economic policymakers ….”And you know, I was once the Times Opinion editor, and the editorial page does evolve in its outlook. Back when the Civil Rights Act passed in the 1960s, our editorial writers made fun of the idea of applying it to gender employment discrimination, theorizing that federal enforcers “may find it would have been better if Congress had just abolished sex itself” and warning it could lead to male Bunnies at the Playboy clubs.Bret: I’m sure we agree that The Times has been wrong about many things in the past — and might even be wrong about a thing or two in the present. I’m still not seeing how the economics have changed since the 1980s.Gail: A higher minimum wage might cause some employers to reduce the number of jobs, at least temporarily. But the danger there is always way overplayed, and those higher-paid minimum wage workers will be spending their new money to lift the economy.Bret: We are living through a period of deep labor shortages, especially in service industries, that allows workers to bargain for higher wages. That makes raising the minimum wage a faulty solution to a fading problem. But I see your point, and this is one of those issues on which conservatives and liberals will argue forever — or at least until automation and robots make it moot.Gail: Meanwhile, on a totally completely different subject, last week we missed the chance to converse about The Slap. Any lingering thoughts about Will Smith hitting Chris Rock at the Oscars?Bret: The truly nauseating part was the standing ovation Smith got for his interminable, self-pitying acceptance speech after hitting Rock. It’s a good reminder of why the American romance with Hollywood is coming to an end, as our colleague Ross Douthat reminded us recently. The best thing the Oscars could do now is to cancel itself.Gail: I have to confess, my husband and I are really into the Oscars. Not the program, which I acknowledge is frequently dreadful. But all the run-up publicity encourages us to catch some fine movies in the more obscure categories like foreign films. I’ll bet you haven’t seen “Lunana: A Yak in the Classroom.”Bret: Should I? The only movie I’ve seen in ages is “King Richard,” which, I have to admit, I liked.Gail: I truly hated Will Smith’s performance in “King Richard.”Bret: Really?Gail: Really, from the start. Don’t know why he turned me off, but acting-wise, I’d go with the yak from Lunana every time.As to The Slap, one of the many things that ticked me off was the whole gender aspect. If a female comedian made fun of an actor’s hair loss, would anybody expect his wife to come storming up and slug the offender? No, in part because a guy going semi-bald is regarded as normal. In part because physical violence is still sort of accepted for men.Bret: If the other Rock, Dwayne Johnson, had made the same joke in Chris Rock’s place, it would have been interesting to watch Smith try to slap him.Gail: Chris Rock’s joke was in bad taste the way a lot of the jokes you hear in public performances are in bad taste. It’s presumed that some people’s feelings may get hurt. Someday I’m going to make a list of all the age-related laugh lines comics in their 40s make about people who are older.Bret: Speaking of tasteless jokes, how about Madison Cawthorn?Gail: You mean the part when the young congressman from North Carolina claimed Washington was a wild place where people he admired invited him to orgies and snorted cocaine? I want to say right off the bat that Cawthorn’s behavior should not be a blot on the reputation of 26-year-olds in general.Bret: To fall afoul of House Republican leader Kevin McCarthy, as Cawthorn did, is like having George Carlin rebuke you for an excessively foul mouth.Gail: Cawthorn’s Republican colleagues in the House sure are ready to dump him, but Donald Trump seems to still be in his corner.Sort of amazing how consistent our former president is in gravitating to the worst politicians imaginable.Bret: If by some miracle Democrats hang on to one or both houses of Congress this November, it will be because of Cawthorn, Paul Gosar, Marjorie Taylor Greene, Lauren Boebert and other would-be G.O.P. candidates trying to be just like them — the Radioactive Republicans. Trump’s embrace of these characters diminishes his chances of being renominated in 2024.In that respect, my money is on Ron DeSantis, the governor of Florida, winning the Republican nomination and facing the governor of Michigan, Gretchen Whitmer, in the general, with Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina and Senator Michael Bennet of Colorado as their respective running mates. Placing any bets of your own?Gail: Impressed by your long-range thinking. If for some reason Trump doesn’t run again — which I can’t really imagine — DeSantis certainly has positioned himself to be next in line. By being as loathsome as possible. I find him completely appalling, but you’re mainly opposed to him as a Trump backer, right? How would you rate him as governor?Bret: I’m no fan of the “Don’t Say Gay” bill. But Democrats underestimate DeSantis at their peril. Florida is hopping, Miami feels like the hottest destination in the country and, barring some scandal or mishandled crisis, DeSantis is going to crush his most likely Democratic opponent, Charlie Crist, in his race for re-election this fall. He also has a genius for baiting liberals and the media and he’s figured out a way to triangulate between the evangelical, business and Trumpian wings of the Republican Party.Long and short of it: If Biden doesn’t dramatically turn his presidency around to boost the Democratic brand and Trump doesn’t torpedo DeSantis’s candidacy out of spite — two big ifs, I’ll admit — DeSantis is going to be awfully hard to defeat in a general election. How would you propose to beat him?Gail: As far as his current re-election race in Florida goes, this is one of those contests where the impartial experts, asked to comment on the opposition’s chances, say things like “There’s always hope.” Don’t think I’m going to invest any energy in dreaming of a DeSantis defeat this year. But definitely going to keep watching him warily on the national level. I’m kinda fascinated that right now he’s at war with Disney over the Magic Kingdom’s defense of gay rights. Who’d have thought?Bret: Strange to say this, but one of the few things Trump did to the G.O.P. that I liked was try to push it to embrace gay rights. So much for that.The larger question here is how far private companies like Disney should go to take politically divisive positions, especially when corporate executives are dealing with a more politically active work force. My general sense is that it’s a bad idea for them to do so — but an even worse idea for politicians to punish them for essentially making business decisions. If people are offended by Disney’s stances, they’re free to skip Disney World.Gail: Florida aside, it’s gonna be a heck of an election year. One of my own fascination points is Ohio, my old home state, where there seem to be more Republicans running for the Senate than squirrels in Central Park. Recently one of them tweeted that when it comes to Ukraine, “We’ve got our own problems.”Bret: You’re referring to J.D. Vance of “Hillbilly Elegy” fame, whose political views seem to spin about as fast as the revolving doors at Macy’s. The last time I saw him, right before the election in 2016, we were on Fareed Zakaria’s show agreeing that Donald Trump should lose. One of us stuck to his guns.Gail: Any contest you’re focused on at the moment? If you want a break until the end of March Madness, I would totally understand …Bret: The only contest that really matters to me right now is the one between Volodymyr Zelensky and Vladimir Putin, between democracy and darkness. On this, I’m happy that you and I and most Americans are on the same page — whatever people like Vance, Tucker Carlson and the rest of the mental wet-burp gang happen to think.The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: letters@nytimes.com.Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram. More

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      Are Trump’s Followers Too Gullible?

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      More from our inbox:The Illogic of the Big LieSalary Negotiations for WomenThe Costs of Homelessness for Society  Damon Winter/The New York TimesTo the Editor:“An Assault on the Truth,” by Rebecca Solnit (Opinion guest essay, Sunday Review, Jan. 9), masks the political reality our country faces. I object to Ms. Solnit’s focus on gullibility as a factor in the right’s disavowal of facts.Donald Trump does not change people’s minds. The beliefs of people on the right are immutable. They are the opposite of gullible.Mr. Trump and others simply create convenient tales readily acceptable to an existing psyche. It’s easy enough to do. Focus on white privilege and the demonization of “others,” and espouse individual rights to the exclusion of all else. You will then have a very serviceable electorate at the ready to hand you power.Any thought that the right’s psyche is in any way malleable needs to be abandoned. Outvoting the right is the only way forward to preserve democracy — and, of course, that may not be enough.Ned GardnerApex, N.C.To the Editor:Rebecca Solnit does not discuss the role of the media in spreading lies among Republicans. There is Fox News, which has become a propaganda front for Donald Trump, before, during and since his presidency. And there is the plethora of right-wing internet sites, whose most outrageous lies are often repeated and brought into the mainstream of political opinion by Republican office holders.The stream of misinformation is pervasive. Democrats have participated in this, too, even if not to the extent that Republicans have. It takes motivation and effort to sort fact from fiction, and for many people that is too hard.Michael E. MahlerLos AngelesTo the Editor:As a clinical therapist who worked in addiction treatment facilities, I was reminded each day of the basic human need for approval and acceptance. We all seek to feel a part of our community, our family and our country. This promotes interdependence and solidarity, and generally strengthens our social bonds.The need for approval, however, can be so great (even desperate) that we surrender ourselves to the group in exchange for the validation it offers. The group embrace is very reassuring — particularly if one’s self-image is a little shaky — and eliminates the need for the thought and self-reflection that take time and effort, and insist that, sometimes, we stand alone in our ideals and beliefs.An integral part of the addictive personality, the need for approval further explains the gullibility and cynicism that Rebecca Solnit describes so accurately.Gary GolioBriarcliff Manor, N.Y.To the Editor:I thought this was an excellent opinion piece, along with other similar pieces you have published. At this point, however, the point has been more than adequately made. The logical next question: What do we do about it? I for one would welcome some commentary on that issue.I am myself completely flummoxed. How do you reason with, and reach out to, someone who believes only what they want to believe, no matter how cuckoo?Douglas ReevesRaleigh, N.C.The Illogic of the Big LieTo the Editor:The gaping hole in Big Lie logic is this: If Democrats were sufficiently corrupt and crafty to throw the election to Joe Biden, why didn’t they “steal” four or five additional Senate seats? Or House seats? Were they too dumb to see that there were other boxes to check below the one for president?The answer, plainly, is that they didn’t because there was no fraud, there was no organized conspiracy. (To true believers: Where are the incriminating emails or evidence of phone calls between corrupt parties?)Republicans, long the party of personal responsibility, have turned into petulant sore losers.Michael H. HodgesAnn Arbor, Mich.Salary Negotiations for WomenJordan Sale’s company aims to help job candidates navigate salary negotiations.Philip Cheung for The New York TimesTo the Editor:Re “What Do You Think You Should Be Paid?” (Sunday Business, Jan. 2):Massachusetts was the first state to prohibit prospective employers from asking about applicants’ compensation history before making a job offer. In response, we began asking possible employees about compensation expectations. We were initially surprised that this created new problems.Some women voiced lower expectations than men for the same job. Others proposed salaries lower than average market value and awkwardly tried to revise them later. But declining to engage in salary discussions is also not an optimal strategy, as prospective employers want to make offers that are likely to be accepted and match relatively closely to expectations.First, be prepared for this question. If you are caught by surprise, there are several options: Applicants can ask the salary range of the position, defer until they have completed their research or cite the market percentile they are aiming for.For equal pay legislation to have the desired effect, education and resources are also required to help women learn how to expect and deftly handle these salary conversations.Alexa B. KimballBostonThe writer is president and chief executive of Harvard Medical Faculty Physicians at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and a professor of dermatology at Harvard Medical School.The Costs of Homelessness for SocietyLori Teresa Yearwood’s journey into homelessness was traumatic and incredibly expensive.Niki Chan Wylie for The New York TimesTo the Editor:Re “Being Homeless Cost Me $54,000,” by Lori Teresa Yearwood (Opinion guest essay, Sunday Review, Jan. 2):Yes, homelessness causes profound problems for homeless people with regard to trauma, debt, mental health and so much more. But the costs are not limited to the homeless. Society pays a huge amount for homelessness.According to the Innovation for Justice Program at the James E. Rogers College of Law at the University of Arizona, the cost of homelessness to Pima County (where Tucson is located) in 2018 was $64,740,105 for 9,984 families evicted that year. The costs of homelessness include increased child welfare cases, medical and emergency room visits, shelter fees, involvement in the juvenile and adult criminal justice system, mental health crises and more.Clearly, assisting the homeless with housing, work and clearing debt so that they can be productive and happier members of society is far cheaper. It is time for all of us to work toward ending this scourge.Nancy Fahey SmithTucson, Ariz.The writer works on social justice issues for Pima County Interfaith, a nonprofit. More

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      Why Trump Still Has Millions of Americans in His Grip

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      Beginning in the mid-1960s, the priorities of the Democratic Party began to shift away from white working and middle class voters — many of them socially conservative, Christian and religiously observant — to a set of emerging constituencies seeking rights and privileges previously reserved to white men: African-Americans, women’s rights activists, proponents of ethnic diversity, sexual freedom and self-expressive individualism.By the 1970s, many white Americans — who had taken their own centrality for granted — felt that they were being shouldered aside, left to face alone the brunt of the long process of deindustrialization: a cluster of adverse economic trends including the decline in manufacturing employment, the erosion of wages by foreign competition and the implosion of trade unionism.These voters became the shock troops of the Reagan Revolution; they now dominate Trump’s Republican Party.Liberal onlookers exploring the rise of right-wing populism accuse their adversaries of racism and sexism. There is plenty of truth to this view, but it’s not the whole story.In “The Bitter Heartland,” an essay in American Purpose, William Galston, a veteran of the Clinton White House and a senior fellow at Brookings, captures the forces at work in the lives of many of Trump’s most loyal backers:Resentment is one of the most powerful forces in human life. Unleashing it is like splitting the atom; it creates enormous energy, which can lead to more honest discussions and long-delayed redress of grievances. It can also undermine personal relationships — and political regimes. Because its destructive potential is so great, it must be faced.Recent decades, Galston continues, “have witnessed the growth of a potent new locus of right-wing resentment at the intersection of race, culture, class, and geography” — difficult for “those outside its orbit to understand.”They — “social conservatives and white Christians” — have what Galston calls a “bill of particulars” against political and cultural liberalism. I am going to quote from it at length because Galston’s rendering of this bill of particulars is on target.“They have a sense of displacement in a country they once dominated. Immigrants, minorities, non-Christians, even atheists have taken center stage, forcing them to the margins of American life.”“They believe we have a powerful desire for moral coercion. We tell them how to behave — and, worse, how to think. When they complain, we accuse them of racism and xenophobia. How, they ask, did standing up for the traditional family become racism? When did transgender bathrooms become a civil right?”“They believe we hold them in contempt.”“Finally, they think we are hypocrites. We claim to support free speech — until someone says something we don’t like. We claim to oppose violence — unless it serves a cause we approve of. We claim to defend the Constitution — except for the Second Amendment. We support tolerance, inclusion, and social justice — except for people like them.”Galston has grasped a genuine phenomenon. But white men are not the only victims of deindustrialization. We are now entering upon an era in which vast swaths of the population are potentially vulnerable to the threat — or promise — of a Fourth Industrial Revolution.This revolution is driven by unprecedented levels of technological innovation as artificial intelligence joins forces with automation and takes aim not only at employment in what remains of the nation’s manufacturing heartland, but increasingly at the white collar, managerial and professional occupational structure.Daron Acemoglu, an economist at M.I.T., described in an email the most likely trends as companies increasingly adopt A.I. technologies.A.I. is in its infancy. It can be used for many things, some of them very complementary to humans. But right now it is going more and more in the direction of displacing humans, like a classic automation technology. Put differently, the current business model of leading tech companies is pushing A.I. in a predominantly automation direction.As a result, Acemoglu continued, “we are at a tipping point, and we are likely to see much more of the same types of disruptions we have seen over the last decades.”In an essay published in Boston Review last month, Acemoglu looked at the issue over a longer period. Initially, in the first four decades after World War II, advances in automation complemented labor, expanding the job market and improving productivity.But, he continued, “a very different technological tableau began in the 1980s — a lot more automation and a lot less of everything else.” In the process, “automation acted as the handmaiden of inequality.”Automation has pushed the job market in two opposing directions. Trends can be adverse for those (of all races and ethnicities) without higher education, but trends can also be positive for those with more education:New technologies primarily automated the more routine tasks in clerical occupations and on factory floors. This meant the demand and wages of workers specializing in blue-collar jobs and some clerical functions declined. Meanwhile professionals in managerial, engineering, finance, consulting, and design occupations flourished — both because they were essential to the success of new technologies and because they benefited from the automation of tasks that complemented their own work. As automation gathered pace, wage gaps between the top and the bottom of the income distribution magnified.Technological advancement has been one of the key factors in the growth of inequality based levels of educational attainment, as the accompanying graphic shows:Falling BehindThe change in weekly earnings among working age adults since 1963. Those with more education are climbing ever higher, while those with less education — especially men — are falling further behind. More

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      Republicans Grapple With Raising the Minimum Wage

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      AdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyRepublicans Grapple With Raising the Minimum WageThe politics of a $15 minimum wage are increasingly muddled, but some Republicans are gravitating toward a higher base pay, citing the economic needs of working-class Americans.A grocery store cashier in Charlottesville, Va., on Friday. The state is among those with the highest share of hourly paid workers earning at or below the federal minimum wage.Credit…Eze Amos for The New York TimesAlan Rappeport and Feb. 26, 2021Updated 7:44 p.m. ETWASHINGTON — The policy debate over raising the federal minimum wage to $15 an hour is the latest fault line between Democrats, who largely support the idea, and Republicans, who generally oppose such a sharp increase as bad for business.But it is also revealing new fissures in the Republican Party, which is straining to appeal to its corporate backers, some of whom believe that more than doubling the minimum wage would cut deeply into their profits, and the working-class wing, which fueled President Donald J. Trump’s rise and would stand to gain from a pay increase.After decades of either calling for the abolishment of a federal minimum wage or arguing that it should not be raised, Republicans are beginning to bow to the realities facing the party’s populist base with proposals that acknowledge the wage floor must rise. President Biden is likely to try to capitalize on that shift as he tries to deliver on his promise to raise the minimum wage, even if it does not make it into the $1.9 trillion aid package because of a ruling Thursday evening by the Senate parliamentarian.For years, Republicans have embraced the economic arguments that were laid out in a letter this month to Congress by Americans for Tax Reform, the Club for Growth and other conservative groups that promote free enterprise. They point to studies that assert mandated wage increases would lead to job losses, small-business closures and higher prices for consumers. And they make the case that the economic trade-offs are not worth it, saying that more jobs would be lost than the number of people pulled from poverty and that those in states with a lower cost of living — often conservative-leaning states — would bear the brunt of the fallout.In 2016, as Republicans moved further to the right, moderate candidates such as Jeb Bush, a former Florida governor, and Senator Marco Rubio of Florida, argued forcefully that the federal minimum wage did not need to be raised above $7.25, which is where it still stands today. Mr. Bush said the matter of wages should be left to the private sector, while Mr. Rubio warned about the risk of making workers more costly than machines.But Republicans have at times grappled with the challenging politics of a position that so clearly sides with business interests. In the 2012 presidential campaign, Mitt Romney, the Republican nominee, said that he believed that the federal minimum wage should rise in step with inflation, as measured by the national Consumer Price Index.And after arguing early on in his 2016 campaign that wages were already too high, Mr. Trump later said he could support a $10 minimum wage.That is the number that Mr. Romney, now a Republican senator from Utah, and Senator Tom Cotton, Republican of Arkansas, introduced in a plan that would gradually raise the minimum wage to $10 over four years and then index it to inflation every two years.On Friday, Senator Josh Hawley, Republican of Missouri, went a step further by matching the proposal that Democrats have made for a $15 minimum wage. His plan comes with a big caveat, however, and would apply only to businesses with annual revenue of more than $1 billion.“Megacorporations can afford to pay their workers $15 an hour, and it’s long past time they do so, but this should not come at the expense of small businesses already struggling to make it,” Mr. Hawley said.The proposal drew a sharp rebuke from David McIntosh, the president of the Club for Growth, who suggested that Mr. Hawley was adopting bad policies in a bid to appeal to Mr. Trump’s voters. He said that his organization would not support Republicans who promoted minimum wage increases and said that they should be pushing for payroll tax cuts to give workers more take-home pay.“This is another example of his ambition driving him to these populist positions that completely violate any principles he has about free markets,” Mr. McIntosh said in an interview.While the talking points surrounding the minimum wage have remained largely the same over the years, the politics are shifting partly because the federal wage floor has stagnated for so long — and a growing economic literature has suggested that the costs of higher wage floors may not be as significant as analysts once worried they might be.After rising gradually over the decades, the minimum has held steady at $7.25 an hour since 2009. Prices have gradually increased since then, so the hourly pay rate goes a shorter distance toward paying the bills these days: Today’s $7.25 is equivalent to $5.85 in 2009 buying power, adjusted by consumer price inflation.Given how low it is set, a relatively small share of American workers actually make minimum wage. About 1.1 million — 1.5 percent of hourly paid workers and about 0.8 percent of all workers — earned at or below the $7.25 floor in 2020.A restaurant worker last week in Brooklyn. The politics of the minimum wage are shifting partly because the federal wage floor has stagnated for so long.Credit…Jordan Gale for The New York TimesStates with the highest share of hourly paid workers earning at or below the federal minimum are often Southern — like South Carolina and Louisiana — and skew conservative. About seven in 10 states that have an above-average share of workers earning at or below the minimum wage voted Republican in the 2020 presidential election.While only a slice of the work force earns at or below the minimum, lifting the federal base wage to $15 would bolster pay more broadly. The $15 minimum wage would lift pay for some 17 million workers who earn less than $15 and could increase pay for another 10 million who earn just slightly more, based on a recent Congressional Budget Office analysis.Still, raising wages for as many as 27 million Americans is likely to come at some cost. The budget office, drawing on results from 11 studies and adjustments from a broader literature, estimated that perhaps 1.4 million fewer people would have jobs in 2025 given a $15 minimum wage.Some economists who lean toward the left have questioned the budget office’s conclusion.In research that summarized 55 different academic studies of episodes where a minimum wage was introduced or raised — 36 in the United States, 11 in other developed countries — Arindrajit Dube at the University of Massachusetts Amherst found that even looking at very narrow slices of workers who were directly affected, a 10 percent increase in minimum wage might lead to a 2 percent loss in employment. Looking at the effects for low-wage workers more broadly, the cost to jobs was “minute.”More recent work from Mr. Dube has found next to no employment impact from state and local minimum wage increases.Yet many Republicans have seized on the budget office’s job loss figure.In a column titled “How Many Jobs Will the ‘Stimulus’ Kill?” Stephen Moore, an adviser and ally of Mr. Trump’s, and the conservative economist Casey B. Mulligan suggest that the $15 federal minimum wage will cost a million jobs or more. Mr. Moore said in an email that they were relying on the Congressional Budget Office’s estimate.Still, a variety of economic officials emphasize that the cost to jobs of a higher minimum wage are not as large as once believed, and that the federal minimum wage has not kept up with inflation.“Higher minimum wages clearly do help the workers who are affected,” John C. Williams, the president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, said during a virtual speech on Thursday. “There are some job losses,” but recent evidence suggests that it is not as many as once expected.There is precedent for raising the minimum wage toward $15, because as the federal base pay requirement has stagnated, states and localities have been increasing their own pay floors. Twenty states and 32 cities and counties raised their minimum wages just at the start of 2021, based on an analysis by the National Employment Law Project, and in 27 of those places, the pay floor has now reached or exceeded $15 an hour.The drive toward $15 started in 2012 with protests by fast-food workers and was initially treated as something of a fringe idea, but it has gained momentum even in states that are heavily Republican. Florida — which Mr. Trump won in November 2020 — voted for a ballot measure mandating a $15 minimum wage by 2026.Like in many of those local cases, Democrats are proposing a gradual increase that would phase in over time. Janet L. Yellen, the Biden administration’s Treasury secretary and former Fed chair, suggested in response to lawmaker questions after her confirmation hearing that the long runway could help mitigate any costs.“It matters how it’s implemented, and the president’s minimum wage will be phased in over time, giving small businesses plenty of time to adapt,” Ms. Yellen wrote.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More