Why Americans hate the "good" economy

Data: Bureau of Labor Statistics; Chart: Neil Irwin/Axios

The big-picture indicators of the U.S. economy, GDP, unemployment and so on, are doing fine while public opinion on economic conditions is at rock bottom.

The big picture: The juxtaposition is the result of not just the elevated prices reflected in macroeconomic data, but higher and more volatile prices for the specific items that dominate Americans' day-to-day living expenses.

That's the early conclusion of top Democratic economic policy minds who have embarked on a new effort to quantify, and develop policy responses to, the economic forces that ail American households.

Zoom in: The "Kitchen Table Project," led by Biden White House economic adviser Lael Brainard and former Consumer Financial Protection Bureau chief Rohit Chopra, could help inform the policy agenda if Democrats were to win control of Congress in November or the White House in 2028.

State of play: They conducted survey work and modeled how a family of four with a median income has been affected by a slew of economic shifts of recent years, including changes in food, gas and health care prices.

They conclude that even as overall inflation has slowed in the last few years, many of the most salient goods and services people buy are more unaffordable than ever, and that rising wages and tax cuts haven't been enough to offset it.

What they're saying: "People are extremely worried about unexpected expenses, and how they will handle it," Brainard tells Axios. "It's the things that are volatile and feel out of control that stress them the most."

"Things that people pay for frequently, like food, groceries, gas, really are top of mind when it comes to their sense of 'am I doing OK?'"

"What we learned is that people are feeling squeezed because they are squeezed, their monthly budgets just aren't going as far as they used to," she says. "It's just rooted in kitchen table economics, not in the aggregate overall statistics."

Case in point: More than half of survey respondents, for example, cited beef costs as the biggest driver of grocery price stress.

Beef prices, Brainard notes, have been higher and more volatile thanks to droughts that contributed to a smaller U.S. cattle herd, concentration in the meatpacking industry that has squeezed ranchers, tariffs that make imported beef more expensive and now a parasite that threatens cattle.

Between the lines: Democratic elected officials have made "affordability" a potent focus of political messaging.

Their rhetoric, however, is often vague, and it isn't always obvious what specific policy actions might help.

The new initiative will lay out more specific policy responses in the months ahead, and could offer more actionable choices for lawmakers to consider.