Liberals Dreamed of This Economy For Decades. What If Voters Don’t Like It?

Liberals Dreamed of This Economy For Decades. What If Voters Don’t Like It?


This is the future liberals wanted.

For years, economic thinkers on the left pushed for more government spending and urged the Federal Reserve to be less paranoid about inflation, with the goal of driving down unemployment as low as possible.

Their logic: Workers would have more leverage to demand higher wages, as employers competed for employees. With higher incomes, people would be able to spend more, which would fuel the economy by creating demand for goods and services. It could also yield higher productivity, as companies invested in technology to better meet demand.


Higher wages, higher growth, higher productivity. Win-win-win.

There’s a chance we’re headed down that exact path, and yet, Americans don’t seem very enthused.

Because they really hate inflation.

For the coalition that has supported this agenda — Democrats to the left of Larry Summers, along with economists representing a range of ideologies — the economy today is a policy success more than a decade in the making. And the fact that it hasn’t yet translated into political success is a worrying challenge for them and President Joe Biden.

Rather than enjoying a victory lap, the people who oversaw this recovery — in the administration, the Fed, Congress and the worlds of academia and economic think tanks — are being asked to explain the disconnect between the economic data and the polling.

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