Prices went up, but not THAT much historically speaking, and inflation had subsided significantly by 2024 and we used to think voters had extremely short memories about econ stuff

Like one thing I think is probably true is that the rate of inflation is probably less salient in people’s minds than the price level.

This super wasn't true before though!

I can accept that maybe that’s true but it really surprises me, and it makes me feel like the true mechanism, then, is media coverage.

This is a live possibility!

But the thing that complicates it is people pretty consistently rated their own situation as fine but thought everyone else’s sucked. Like if you aggregated the individual it was fine but if you aggregated people’s broad perceptions it was a depression.

I continue to believe that "prices" is actually a way of people talking about their sense of economic security. If you feel like your job is threatened, if you fear losing your housing, then all prices look high. And when pollsters ask questions, there isn't any disambiguation.

The other thing is, if you get asked about prices often enough, and you are feeling anxious, your anxiety will _attach_ to prices. People are legitimately anxious about their economic security. But all they are ever asked about is prices.

Furthermore, there are a lot of reasons why people don't look at the root causes of their anxiety. Partly that's just the way brains work, but also, we've been told that there is nothing we can do about abusive employers, and that advocating for better wages is counter-productive.

There is a generation long project of teaching workers in this country that they have no power, that their only hope is that rich people will share. It's gaslighting, and it has caused people to have _no insight_ into their own economic position.

I think after a long long period of low inflation, it was different,

This would be the just-so special pleading, though, is the thing

yeah though like...it is how I broadly feel about prices so I've got that going for me. Like I got pretty settled into an intuition of "what things cost" and it hasn't reset yet.

yeah, though prices didn't like, come back *down*. I think it's hard to adjust people's perception of what prices are supposed to be.

This was never relevant before though!

Companies charging market rates instead of subsidizing Instacart and Uber Eats doesn’t count as inflation (because that would be insane), but it did impact how much people were paying for things.

that's true, it was a second blow

Sure, was using that as a shorthand, just like people were using prices as a shorthand for their other problems.