Jesus. This is the same shit that cost Kamala the election. Idiot libs just kept looking at the median inflation-adjusted income and saying, "look, things are fine, in real dollar terms, people's incomes are up!" Yet they never wanted to hear about the intricacies of how inflation is calculated and how the inflation rate can differ between income levels and life situations. In reality, people in the upper middle class experienced a negative inflation rate, while those in the working class experienced a high positive inflation rate. For those who owned a home and a had nice stock portfolio, their assets increased faster than the rising cost of basic goods. People who owned a home were able to refinance their mortgages to 2% and watched as their 401k balances soared. For them, things were great. For people living paycheck to paycheck with nothing to their name but an overdrawn checking account, they got the increased bills without any corresponding increase in owned assets. And that's before you consider how cooked inflation statistics are, downplaying the impacts of basic necessities, the bullshit goods substitution rules, and how cheaper luxuries can mask the soaring cost of necessities in overall inflation figures.
I remember having many conversations on social media with liberals who kept talking about the vibecession. But they didn't want to hear it. They stuck their fingers in their ears, shook their heads, closed their eyes and said, "median inflation adjusted income is up. Median inflation adjusted income is up. Median inflation adjusted income is up." Not in so many words, but that was the mantra. You could point out the numerous flaws in this, and how the very term 'vibecession' was dismissive and insulting to people's real lived experience, but the bastards didn't want to hear it.
Unfortunately for Kamala and for the rest of us, the voters made her hear it.
: “WHAT recession? I’VE been doing excellent! Have you seen how much my property values went up? Besides, the talent pool I get for even internships is higher than ever! How is that a BAD economy?”