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I don't think most people know what a recession is, and things getting more expensive and there being increased disruption among service workers people depend on probably felt like one.

Similarly one day historians will look back at the Biden period and note we were two votes shy of ending child poverty in the US but the fear that was causing eggs to cost $1 more per dozen proved too much

Then it became about businesses recognizing an opportunity to expand margins while passing responsibility for price hiking onto the government.

But average wage increase doesn't mean everyone has more money -- not everyone is employed, not everyone who is employed is in an industry with rising wages, etc -- but everyone has less money when energy and food prices rise.

I don't think you can fairly judge the popularity of Biden's economy when there was rampant inflation driven by the pandemic and no cheerleader. You need someone at the bully pulpit shaping the narrative and the man was a zombie.

Wealth was increasing for the lower earning brackets and some people said "no, not like that". It certainly wasn't perfect but it's much better than what we're getting now. I do fear that some people just refuse any incremental improvements and only want revolution.

but also, when asked, people thought that unemployment was high and that we were in a recession so the finding still holds: even fantasy recessions are unpopular

What they wanted was for exiting a global pandemic to be completely painless, for a billion people returning to their lives at once to cause 0% inflation, and for trillions in covid benefits to go on indefinitely, none of which was going to happen.

"Inequality-reducing labor market" is popular among those who care. Most, the vast majority of people, don't care. I will also bet that no more than 3% of the population actually knows that.

I’m not sure we actually know what people want because we didn’t have a capable president working to seek the economy to the American people.