No, Karen, the Economy Is Not “Really Doing Great.”

We hear day after day — from you, Karen — that the U.S. economy is, “Really doing great!”

· Unemployment is at a 50-year low!

· The stock market is at an all-time high!

· US corporate profits have set record after record!

So why does everyone feel their life is shit?

Because this scoreboard has nothing to do with the grim realities we are all experiencing.

And because, no, Karen, the economy is not “really doing great.”

You are earning less than fifty years ago.

So what if unemployment is at 3-point-whatever percent? Real wages have not grown in decades.

In fact, US wages peaked back in — get this — 1970.

There’s a thing called the Phillips Curve — or at least there used to be. The Phillips Curve predicts as unemployment drops, wages rise. A basic supply-and-demand thing.