Lake says voters judge economy through lived experience
US average hourly earnings rose 3% over the last year, while consumer prices increased 3.7%, according to BBC News. The report said the wage-price gap helps explain why polls continue to show voters giving Trump poor marks for his handling of the economy, even as the administration cites broader economic strength.
Trump’s “Liberation Day” tariffs, announced in April 2025, added to consumer costs. A Federal Reserve Bank of New York study found that the tariffs increased consumer-goods prices by about 2.9%. BBC News said the impact might have been larger if Trump had not later paused some tariffs, struck new trade deals and been blocked by the Supreme Court from using emergency powers to impose many others.
Celinda Lake, a veteran Democratic pollster who advised Biden’s 2020 campaign but was not involved in the 2024 race, said economists and voters use the same language to mean different things. “When economists say inflation comes down, they mean the rate of increase has come down,” Lake said. “When voters say inflation has come down, they mean the price has returned to what it was. Well, of course, it never returns to what it was.”
Lake said voters judge the economy through personal experience, not economic indicators. “You can’t argue with people about their own lived reality,” she said. BBC News said Lake’s distinction may help explain why Trump’s challenge looks so similar to Biden’s in 2024. The report said the dynamic felt familiar to Democrats and that voters judge the economy by what they pay at supermarkets, petrol prices and whether they can keep up with the bills, rather than by GDP figures or record highs in the stock market.
BBC News said the causes were different. The report said the Biden administration spent much of 2024 highlighting low unemployment, solid growth and falling inflation, but many voters remained focused on the higher prices they faced every day. Biden’s critics blamed him for inflation, although he could point to forces largely outside his control, including the Covid pandemic and its supply-chain aftershocks. The report said Trump has less room to make the same argument. Trump faces higher energy prices linked to the US-Israel conflict with Iran and the fallout from some of his own trade and immigration policies, BBC News reported.
BBC News reported that economic growth was holding up, unemployment remained low and the stock market was near record highs. The report said the final inflation report ahead of the midterm elections confirmed what voters already knew: prices remained high. It assessed US economic growth of 2.2% as respectable by the standards of many wealthy economies, said Germany had struggled to generate comparable momentum, and said a stable 4.2% US unemployment rate hardly suggested an economy in freefall. FRED’s UNRATE series listed a raw unemployment rate of 4.2% as of 2026-10-27.
A linked inflation item within BBC News’s main analysis was published on 14 October and reported that US inflation rose more than expected. The main analysis carried a 27 October publication date, making clear that the earlier date belonged to the linked item.
During the 2024 campaign, Trump promised voters swift relief from rising prices. “When I win, I will immediately bring prices down,” he said. BBC News said delivering on that promise had proved harder than expected. The report said voters appeared to read a different story: Trump had won the presidency promising to tackle the cost of living, only for prices to keep rising.
Trump argues that he inherited an economic mess from Biden and points to strong growth, investment and stock-market performance as evidence that his policies are working. After the most recent inflation report, White House spokesman Matthew Middleton said the administration’s “aggressive, pro-growth economic agenda” had blunted “Biden’s inflation crisis”. Larry Kudlow, a Trump ally and economic commentator, described the current expansion as “the greatest story never told” and argued that “nobody is getting fired.”
Some economists argue that today’s higher prices are at least partly the result of Trump’s own policies, including tariffs, as well as the economic fallout from the US-Israel war with Iran. Peter Morici, a University of Maryland economist who aligns with Republicans, said, “The inflation is clearly traceable to Donald Trump.” He added, “It’s his tariffs and the war. People know that. They see it.” Conflict with Iran then pushed oil prices higher, lifting the cost of petrol and placing fresh pressure on household budgets.
The White House points to tax cuts, job growth and lower prescription-drug costs as evidence that the administration is delivering for American families. The administration is increasingly embracing policies aimed at easing pressures on households. Trump has called for a cap on credit-card interest rates and floated a $5,000 payment to American adults if Republicans retain control of Congress.
BBC News framed the White House’s challenge as a familiar dilemma: the economic numbers were not necessarily bad, but the public mood was. Its analysis said the measures reflect a political reality familiar to both parties: when voters are anxious about prices, arguments about solid growth and low unemployment are rarely enough. The report said Biden never found a way to bridge the gap between economic performance and economic sentiment, and framed the question heading into the midterms as whether Trump could. It added that, if recent political history is any guide, perceptions of the economy may matter more than the economic data itself.