Maybe people think the economy is bad because journalists are economically illiterate

This NYT piece is dedicated to gently pointing out in the most subtle and polite possible terms that everything Donald Trump is saying about the state of the nation is a pack of lies, but even in the midst of this salubrious exercise it falls into exactly the sort of nonsensical descriptions that Trump’s lies depend on:

For the first time since that transition 24 years ago, there will be no American troops at war overseas on Inauguration Day. New data reported in the past few days indicate that murders are way down, illegal immigration at the southern border has fallen even below where it was when Mr. Trump left office and roaring stock markets finished their best two years in a quarter-century.

Jobs are up, wages are rising and the economy is growing as fast as it did during Mr. Trump’s presidency. Unemployment is as low as it was just before the Covid-19 pandemic and near its historic best. Domestic energy production is higher than it has ever been.

The manufacturing sector has more jobs than under any president since Mr. Bush. Drug overdose deaths have fallen for the first time in years.

Sounds good, but naturally we must on the other hand:

Even inflation, the scourge of the Biden presidency, has returned closer to normal, although prices remain higher than they were four years ago.

First, year over year inflation is far lower than both the median and the mean inflation rate over the past 60 years, so it’s not “close to normal” — it’s much lower than “normal,” at least if we assume history didn’t begin in 2011.

But a much worse problem with this slovenly sentence is the claim that nevertheless “prices remain higher than they were four years ago.” This idiotic formulation internalizes the folk psychology that assumes that if rising nominal prices are bad, then falling nominal prices are good. If nominal prices were actually lower now than they were four years ago, that would mean the economy was a catastrophic deflationary spiral, although I have no idea how many hand puppets it would take to explain this to our intrepid correspondent.

This of course is a huge problem with the politics of inflation in general. The belief that a successful battle against inflation means reducing nominal prices is something that makes sense to Nigel Tufnel et al., but Nigel is confused, and it’s your job, fancy credentialed NYT reporter who went to all the best schools, to be less confused than he is.

And again:

The cost of gasoline, while down from its peak, is still about 70 cents per gallon higher than when Mr. Biden took office.

The cost of gasoline is currently almost the same as it was four years ago in real dollars, but more to the point it’s lower than it was — again in those pesky real dollars — than it has been for the vast majority of the past 75 years! (Note that the linked chart ends in 2023 but gas is about 45 cents cheaper now than it was then).

The election of Donald Trump to the presidency of the United States not once but twice will remain an eternal mystery, like how a bumblebee can fly or the professional career of Carrot Top.