Why Is This Economic Number Up?

When the economy is at rock bottom, this measure of consumer sentiment has nowhere to go but up.

Full Transcript:

John Solomon  0:00  
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Scott Rasmussen  1:21  
Good morning, Scott Rasmussen here. Welcome to my podcast: Scott Rasmussen's Number of the Day. We got some encouraging news yesterday on the economic front. Consumer confidence was up, and, in fact, it was up way more than the experts expected. Now, you know, on the one hand, you got to keep all of this in context. One of the reasons consumer confidence is up is because when you hit bottom, there's only one way to go. And over the last several months, our economy and our economic confidence has certainly hit bottom. I mean, we had the Coronavirus and government-ordered shutdowns of business. 40 million people thrown out of work, all kinds of people depressing economic news. There were times when you couldn't get supplies or anything delivered to your home. Confidence fell to the lowest level we have seen in years, and there was only one way to go. And, so, right now the idea that consumer confidence is up is a little bit like we've fallen into a very deep hole and we're starting to climb up, but we still have a long way to go. And that's certainly an accurate assessment of the situation. 

But what interests me is not so much the fact that consumer confidence was up. But the fact that it was up so much more than the economist expected. I'll give you a sense of scale. Consumer confidence is measured on an index. And the experts thought that it would go from about 86 a month ago to 91 now, so a five-point increase. Instead, consumer confidence jumped by more than 12 points. About two and a half times as much as was projected. So, what was it about this entire process that led the economists to underestimate this growth, the level of growth and optimism. I'm going to explore that with today's number the day. The number is 54. It's based on some research that I've been doing for Ballotpedia. In that research we've I've been serving workers and in breaking them down into different categories to see how they're reviewing things surrounding the pandemic and other issues. Big, big difference between workers who are, what I say, are outworking. They're the people who are engaging in-person with customers and coworkers. That's one chunk of workers in the economy today. And then there's another group: that's the socially isolated workers and these are the people who don't have any in-person interaction with either customers or colleagues. They're working off a computer screen, they're working from home, they are socially isolated. And it turns out these two groups have pretty wildly different views of the economy and other aspects of life. So, we talked to the people who are out working. 54% of them, that's today's number of the day, 54% of those who are out working say that when they look back, they think the lockdowns have done more harm than good. Now, that views shocking to those who are socially isolated. 62% of them disagree. Among the socially isolated workers, they may not like the lockdowns, they may be a little frustrated by it, but they say they were necessary. And that gap between these two groups of workers extends to other areas, their perceptions of the economy. And in the B-block, I'm going to explain why that may have led the economists to underestimate the growth in consumer confidence. While you're waiting for that, take a moment to share this podcast with your friends and subscribe to Scott Rasmussen's Number of the Day.

John Solomon  4:51  
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Scott Rasmussen  6:37  
Welcome back to Scott Rasmussen's Number of the Day. I'm Scott and the number today is 54. To 54% of people who are out working say that when they look back, they believe the lockdowns did more harm than good. Now, there's another group, another segment of the workforce, people who are socially isolated at work and they have the opposite view. They disagree. 62% of them say "no, we may not like the lockdowns, we may be frustrated, we may be going a little stir crazy, but the lockdowns were needed." Well, the difference between the perceptions of these two groups goes a long way to explaining how come the economists underestimated the growth and optimism. Why? Well, largely, it's because what we see what we experience ourselves has a lot to do with what we project will happen in the world around us. And then, in terms of consumer confidence, the people who are socially isolated at work are a lot more pessimistic than the people who are out working. 47% of people who are socially isolated at work say the economy is getting worse, a much smaller number say it's getting better. When you go to people who are outworking, not socially isolated, the people who are out working, they're pretty evenly divided between whether the economy is getting better or worse. A slight plurality say, actually things are getting better. 

This difference, the difference between these groups of people who are outworking and the people who are socially isolated at work, plays out every day in our media coverage. I believe that people who are outworking are underrepresented in the news storyline about the pandemic. Why? Well, because the people who are isolated, the people who are working at home, people, we're only working with others through a screen, that's kind of an elite professional class. It's a group that includes professional economists, it's a group that includes the media. So, they, you know, they look at the world from that perspective, and from the perspective of those who are socially isolated, the economy is getting worse. Things are very, are troubling. And yeah, you know, they can say, "Well, sure, you know, we hit bottom, maybe things will be a little bit less pessimistic this month than before." But they totally missed the perspective of those people who are out working, the people who are more upbeat about the economy. And I think this is a really important aspect, or fact, to consider as we think of all the coverage of the pandemic and the economic recovery and the efforts to reopen American society, The people who are controlling the narrative, the people who are in the media, the people who are, you know, kind of the public dialogue, they're more pessimistic. And they are not taking into account, they are not recognizing the perspective of people who are out working. I'll be back with some closing thoughts in the C-block, talking about the difficulty of predicting what's going to happen next. I do want to point out that all of the numbers I talked about so when I talk about this research on workers and the gap between those who are out working and those who are socially isolated, you can find that at ScottRasmussen.com. We post the data, the question wording, some comments on the methodology, you can see the cross tabs. So, don't take my word for it. Go to the website ScottRasmussen.com. Check it out for yourself. And while you're doing that, be sure to tell your friends about it. Again, I hope you'll share this podcast with them and take a moment to subscribe to Scott Rasmussen's Number of the Day.

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Welcome back to Scott Rasmussen's Number of the Day. I'm Scott. The number today is 54. Among people who are out working 54% believe that the lockdowns did more harm than good. Among a group at the opposite end of the work spectrum, the people who are socially isolated, 62% say no, the lockdowns may have been annoying, but they were necessary. There's a gap between these two groups on consumer confidence and other issues as well. The group that is out working is more optimistic, or maybe I should say less pessimistic because they're kind of evenly divided about whether the economy is getting better or worse. But the group that is socially isolated is convinced the economy is getting worse. This gap between these two groups is one of the big reasons that economists, one of the big reasons I believe, economists underestimated the growth in consumer confidence. They were too busy talking to people like themselves, people who were socially isolated, people who were working only on a screen, people who tended to be more pessimistic about the economy. So, they said, "okay, you know, confidence has to go up a little bit because it's been so low, but we can't really imagine anybody's that upbeat." And in fact, they missed the most important part of the story: the people who are outworking, who are not part of the regular news coverage, and the people who are more optimistic, or, again, less pessimistic, about the economy. This is a gap we'll be watching closely at Ballotpedia and in a lot of my work as the pandemic continues to unfold. We want to see the difference between people who are out working and those who are socially isolated, and see where it creates problems in the media coverage and in our understanding of the world around us. You know, as we do this, I think it's important to remember that it's difficult to make projections in the best of times, it's especially difficult in volatile times. So, I'm not suggesting that, you know, that the economists who misread the environment were silly or stupid or wrong or anything else. It's just that they didn't have access to a full-enough range of information. And one of the things that I hope that we'll be able to do in the coming weeks and months is provide more information on people who are out working so that we get a fuller picture of what Americans are thinking during this pandemic. 

I'm Scott Rasmussen and I'll be back tomorrow morning with another Number of the Day. You can also find my data, there's a new poll released every day at JustTheNews.com about two o'clock ET. Ballotperdia.org, the encyclopedia of American politics, always has my Number of the Day posted and you can find any references and links to the raw data at that point. I hope you'll take a moment again and share this with your friends. Share the podcast with your friends, and then wherever you go to download your favorite podcast, take a moment and subscribe to Scott Rasmussen's Number of the Day. I'll be back tomorrow morning. Have a great day.

John Solomon  15:00  
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