WASHINGTON (AP) \u2014 Gov. Greg Abbott, R-Texas, often knocks President Joe Biden for\u00a0high inflation\u00a0and a\u00a0looming recession\u00a0\u2014 a standard GOP argument going into the\u00a0November elections.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But inflation is even worse in major Texas cities than across the nation as a whole. Government figures show inflation is 10.2% in the Houston area and 9.4% around Dallas, higher than the latest national average of 8.5%.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Abbott and other GOP leaders\u00a0are making a paradoxical argument that the U.S. economy has slumped into a recession, but Republican-led parts of the country are still booming. Those officials are blaming Biden\u2019s policies for\u00a0sky-high gasoline\u00a0and food prices, while taking credit for the\u00a0job gains\u00a0those same policies helped spur.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Texas governor\u00a0tweeted\u00a0on July 28: \u201cThe U.S. economy is in a recession under Biden. Meanwhile, Texas was #1 in the nation for job growth in June & more Texans have jobs today than ever before in our state\u2019s history.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Associated Press found a familiar pattern in 15 Republican-led states in which governors on Twitter would praise job growth in their states, while senators would simultaneously say the national economy as a whole was crashing. These seemingly conflicting claims were also repeated in public remarks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
GOP leaders say state policies such as low tax rates and keeping business open during the pandemic helped to fuel hiring and investment. But their claims tend to ignore how job growth was also boosted by a historic injection of federal money that began in March 2020 and continued under Biden with last year\u2019s\u00a0$1.9 trillion coronavirus relief package.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Biden and his fellow Democrats have acknowledged the pain caused by inflation that hit a 40-year high this summer. But the president has stressed that the United States has avoided a recession because of the low\u00a03.5% unemployment rate. He argues that\u00a0global factors\u00a0such as the pandemic, fragile supply chains and Russia\u2019s invasion of Ukraine caused prices to jump \u2014 and that he\u2019s meeting the public\u2019s needs with\u00a0the economic and climate package signed into law on Tuesday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cToo often we hand the biggest microphone to the critics and the cynics who delight in declaring failure while those committed to making real progress do the hard work of governing,\u201d Biden said in a swipe at the GOP.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Multiple surveys do show\u00a0that voters have a sense of foreboding about the economy and that most people fault the president. Researchers said there\u2019s not a lot of academic analyses to show why many voters seem willing to blame inflation on White House policies and give a pass to statehouses, as inflation had been low in recent decades and less of a factor in elections than jobs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Andrew Reeves, a political science professor at Washington University in St. Louis, said most voters likely judge the local and national economies by different standards. When it comes to state and local officials, voters form opinions through what they observe in their daily lives. But they often gauge the national economy through hard numbers and political ideologies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThe \u2018national economy\u2019 is this nebulous thing that none of us actually experiences,\u201d Reeves said. \u201cIt\u2019s an abstract concept. We may be more willing to let our partisanship shade how we see what is going on nationally. Joe Biden is well into his term, so the honeymoon is over and he owns this economy \u2014 whether his policies are directly responsible for it or not.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Republican governors such as Florida\u2019s Ron DeSantis and Georgia\u2019s Brian Kemp are largely unscathed on inflation, even though consumer prices are significantly above the national average in both of those states. Inflation is 10.6% in the Miami area, 11.2% in Tampa and 11.5% in Atlanta.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
What many voters in Republican states are hearing is an economic argument similar to what Biden has attempted on a national scale \u2014 that job growth and government finances are strong enough to insulate people from a downturn.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
DeSantis dismissed Biden\u2019s claims that the U.S. economy remains healthy, calling that \u201cOrwellian doublespeak.\u201d The governor said at Florida\u2019s Airports Council conference on Aug. 1 that his state\u2019s budget surplus could insulate it from a downturn.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWe\u2019re not immune to the inflation, we\u2019re not immune to the energy prices,\u201d DeSantis said. \u201cBecause Florida has been open, because Florida has excelled economically, we\u2019re in the position where we\u2019re going to be able to meet those needs of the state regardless of what Uncle Joe throws at us from Washington, D.C.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Job growth has been broad across the country.\u00a0Data released Friday by the Bureau of Statistic\u00a0s found that employment increased in 43 states and was essentially unchanged in seven states over the past 12 months.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But the bipartisan research group EIG analyzed job growth in the three major Republican states (Texas, Arizona and Florida) and the three major Democratic ones (California, Illinois and New York). It found that the GOP areas have fully recovered and exceeded their pandemic job totals, while the recovery has been slower in Democratic states.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
What seems to be the much more overarching priority among voters is not jobs but inflation, said John Lettieri, EIG\u2019s president and CEO. At a time of political polarization, it\u2019s striking to him how fears about prices are crossing generational, class, regional and partisan lines.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThere is strong unanimity that the economy is an issue, inflation is the No. 1 problem and Biden is to blame,\u201d Lettieri said. \u201cThis cuts across all the divides. All those different ways we slice up the electorate, they\u2019re all responding to this to one degree or another in strong ways.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Inflation appears to be an inescapable challenge for Biden, even as other issues such as abortion rights appear to be rallying Democratic voters. Republicans are able promote job gains to say why they would be better at leading the economy, without having to list, as Biden has stressed in speeches, their own policies for reducing consumer prices.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Gabriel Lenz, a political science professor at the University of California Los Angeles, said the \u201cbest measure of what voters are personally experiencing\u201d is a metric known as real disposable personal income. That figure looks at how much money people have after adjusting for taxes and inflation. Its changes over the past two years mirror those of Democratic political fortunes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
When Biden signed pandemic relief into law in March 2021, people\u2019s real disposable income climbed 28.7% from a year ago. The aid helped the economy recover while some notable economists warned it could also be inflationary. As prices rose over the past year and much of the aid expired, real disposable income has tumbled 3.5% over the past 12 months as a result.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Based on that number, Lenz concluded: \u201cIt\u2019s no surprise that people are gloomy.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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