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[14] So, a lot of success there in bringing down inflation, but not the price level. And that's what has people essentially tied up in fits on this issue here.
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[15] What we see is that a large portion still see prices rising, and a good portion of them still see them rising faster than they had been before that 45%, only 16% say they're leveling off, and 6% say they're going down, which is not what the data say.
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[16] But you can't argue. People say, "Look, the data say this," and people say, "Well, it's really my life experience that is governing how I feel about things."
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[17] And then the next part of it, Christian, maybe just jump a little bit ahead, is the issue is, are people keeping pace with inflation? And more than 60% say they're not.
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[18] They believe their incomes are not going up along with inflation, even though the last year we've seen real or inflation-adjusted earnings have one of their best years in the past 10.
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[19] It's just fascinating to dig into the numbers. The other key finding here is that people are expecting the economy to get better in the next year. What do you make of that? What's behind those numbers?
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[20] So, we have gone back now, I've been doing this poll, if you can believe it, for something like 17 years now, every quarter, forever. And it seems that every four years, we get a jump in this. "Things are going to get better." And it's driven by.
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[21] Now, we had a jump in Republicans thinking things are going to get better, and a jump in Democrats who think things are going to get better, which you might expect.
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[22] By the way, with a poll that's tied, even where both sides think they have a flip of a coin chance of winning here. So, we did get this little bump on things getting better.
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[23] The other time, it's interesting, Christian, when we see people think things are going to get better is when things are really bad right now.
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[24] So in the middle of the Great Financial Crisis, everybody said, "Well, things are terrible now. We think they're going to get better in the future." That tends to be the way people believe things.
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[25] But you're right, there's a big political aspect to it. But the economy has been doing pretty well. We have a low unemployment rate, we've had strong growth, and again, real wages have made a really strong turnaround, but perhaps not enough to show up in the poll.
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[26] Well, thank you for digging into all of the numbers for us, Steve Liesman. Always great to have you and have your fantastic insights. Really appreciate it. - My pleasure.