This does a pretty good job I think in correlating what people are seeing and what they are feeling.
Economic output and the stock market are surging, consumers are spending big and the post-pandemic recession that many expected never materialized. But many feel terrible about their finances, with debt at all-time highs, and the majority of Americans incorrectly believe the country is in an economic slowdown.
We are all seeing first hand that inflation does not apply to people equally and certain areas and incomes hit different people in different ways.
Nearly three-fifths of Americans believe the U.S. economy is currently in a recession, which is widely defined as a period of multiple quarters with negative GDP growth, according to a Guardian-Harris poll conducted in December. That’s up 11% from a similar survey taken earlier in 2025.
A new survey from Snap Finance shared exclusively with CNBC shows just how much worse the outlook is for those at the bottom of the financial food chain.
Just around one-fourth of respondents called their current financial situations “unstable” or “very unstable,” per data released Wednesday. But that percentage shoots up to 41% for those with credit scores below 670 and 54% for people in households with incomes at or below $50,000.
If most people feel like their standard of living is eroding and the metrics show a booming economy, there's most likely something wrong with those economic metrics.
Improved quality of life is the real meaning of economic growth.
I see what you are saying. It's a odd thing to see GDP growth continue and economic output to increase but people feel more negative about the economy. Based off the charts they show a huge thing seems to be (and I dont know how they calculated this so dont shoot the messenger) food prices for poor areas were 9% higher than in rich areas.
The job market is interesting as well given that the market is relatively flat overall or a "hiring recession" as it has been called with except for a couple of companies announcing huge layoffs the numbers are just flat.
There are lots of possible explanations.
One is that gains and losses are very unevenly distributed, so most people can be worse off but enough others can be sufficiently better off to more than balance it out.
Another one I'm thinking about is that people may be feeling a lack of optionality. Maybe people can afford their current lifestyles on their current salaries, but can't find better jobs or afford to change their lifestyle. In other words, the negative sentiment comes from feeling stuck.