PHOTO: AFP/FILE

AFP, Washington

Cooling inflation, low unemployment, robust economic growth and... downbeat voters.

Despite indicators showing the US economy is moving in a healthy direction, many Americans remain pessimistic about business and job prospects -- a mood that poses a frustrating problem for Vice President Kamala Harris in her neck-and-neck race with Donald Trump for the White House.

Less than a month before November’s presidential election, the US economy added around 100,000 more jobs than expected in September, saw wages grow further and inflation approach striking distance of policymakers’ two percent target.

Yet, almost half the respondents of a New York Times/Siena College poll released Tuesday rated current economic conditions “poor.”

Poll after poll has also found the economy -- particularly inflation -- to be a top voter concern by far.

While Harris has narrowed Trump’s lead, polls have suggested voters favor the former president on economic issues.

Economists point to a cumulative rise in costs since the pandemic, still-high home prices and uneven job gains in explaining a seeming disconnect between data and voter sentiment.

“At the same time that they’re aware that inflation has slowed, (consumers) remain frustrated by high prices,” said Joanne Hsu of the University of Michigan.

For politicians, “the low-hanging fruit is trying to take aim at prices that people see on a day-to-day basis,” economist Ryan Sweet of Oxford Economics said, referring to food and gas.

“This election cycle just highlights inflation is extremely unpopular,” he added.

“Over the last few years, consumers have gone through a period of very large price increases,” Sweet told AFP.

“You’d have to go back to the 1970s and 1980s to see the last time that the US economy had inflation that high.”

Inflation climbed to over 14 percent in 1980. Consumers again saw price increases soar to a painful 9.1 percent in mid-2022.

“For many voters, that’s the first time they experienced (such) inflation,” Sweet said.

While the Consumer Price Index (CPI) fell to 2.5 percent in August, Sweet said “it’s the price level that matters to the consumer” and not inflation numbers.

The CPI for food has risen 26 percent since February 2020 during the pandemic, he noted. The cost of gas also increased, while that of new and used vehicles are around 20 percent above 2020 levels.

Trump appears to be tapping into such sentiment.

“Inflation has devastated our economy,” he told reporters last week. Trump also linked last week’s dockworkers strike to inflation, saying it badly hit workers.