December 17, 2014
The NYT had a discussion of the debate among Democrats on whether they should take credit for the state of the economy. The piece is somewhat confused. It it includes many variables that either have no impact on most people or are not even measures of economic success.
For example, it refers to the decline in the deficit to less than 3.0 percent of GDP. Since the economy is still far below full employment according to estimates of the Congressional Budget Office and other forecasters, this just means that the government is pulling demand out of the economy. It is not clear why this would be a useful accomplishment for the Democrats to boast about.
It also tells readers that “exports are up.” This is especially bizarre, since exports are almost always up and exports are not a measure of economic success. If GM moves an assembly plant from Ohio to Mexico, so that car parts are exported to be assembled in Mexico, exports would be up. Of course the country would have lost the jobs in the Ohio assembly plant and imports would be up even more, leading to a fall in GDP which depends on net exports. Needless to say, the Democrats would look pretty foolish boasting about this.
Remarkably, this piece ignores the importance of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) as an economic benefit to the middle class. Every month more than 4.7 million people leave or lose their job. The vast majority of these people are middle class. Over the course of the year this would imply more than 50 million job changers if there were no repeat changers. (There are.) These people no longer have to worry about getting health care insurance for themselves and their families as a result of the ACA. This provides an enormous amount of economic security to the middle class. It is incredible the piece would not discuss this fact. Access to health insurance certainly matters much more to middle class families than the amount of goods the country exports.
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