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ajross | on: Trump wins presidency for second time
Did you link the wrong chart? The slope is clearly positive over the last four years. Ergo people are getting wealthier, on average, even accounting for inflation. If you want to make a point that "Trump won because of service economy price increases, whereas cheaper good and fuel didn't help Harris as much", that's a rather more complicated thing.

Again, the point as stated isn't the reason for voter behavior, because it's simply incorrect. Voters didn't vote because they're poorer, because they're not poorer. QED.

_huayra_ | parent | next
Oh wow $50 annually since 2020, sorry I didn't realize, but now I see when I zoomed in.

They're not poorer. They're exactly one used Xbox richer.

I agree that it's more complicated why Trump won than just the economy, but to say "people are getting wealthier" when

a) it's an extremely paltry rate compared to the prior 4 years and

b) people have had to readjust their "basket of goods" to buy different things because certain non-negotiable things (e.g. cars, car insurance, other insurance, utilities in a lot of unregulated states, property taxes outside of places with Prop 13 / homestead exemption, etc) have gone up significantly, putting a squeeze on disposable income.

I guess we're arguing semantics here, but I agree that a lot of voter decision on this is more complicated than real income. I just disagree that $50 / year increase is meaningful enough to have people not feel left behind. That is about 12 bps a year, and I know that if my raise were 12 bps, I'd feel like why bother at all / insulted. If I were a moron, I would blame the current president, but I'm not naive enough to think that it's Biden's fault.

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drawkward | parent
It is far less positive than the general trend prior...
ajross | root | parent
Only a little, and there are plenty of actual downturns and flat spots on that chart that didn't cause voter realignment. Again, all I can say is that this argument as framed is simply wrong. Voters weren't angry because they were poorer, period.