Angry Americans How The 2008 Crash Fueled A Political...

Angry Americans: How the 2008 Crash Fueled a Political Rebellion, Victoria Stilwell and Sarah McGregor, March, 1 2016 Bloomberg Americans are revolting in the primaries by either voting for Trump or supporting Sanders because they don’t believe the American economy is fine. Unemployment is at an eight-year low but labor force participation is down. There has been six years of uninterrupted growth but at a pace that won’t close the economy’s output gap until 2026. Wage growth is getting higher but not by much. Statistics like these explain why the 2007 – 2009 recession is still present in the electoral scene. After the worst collapse and weakest recovery, many Americans seem eager to listen to the Sanders critique of wealth distribution or Trump’s argument against trade. Families are skeptical of claims that the recession is over or that the US has recovered. They feel that they haven’t recovered are or worse off than they were before. According to Doug Holtz-Eakin, president of the center-right American Action Forum and a former director of the Congressional Budget Office, it’s an inconsistency between what is actually happening in their everyday lives and what they’re hearing which is why people are so angry. Trump and Sanders are using that anger to challenge the management of America’s economy at a more fundamental level than other candidates. Sanders, a self-proclaimed democratic socialist, focuses on the internal disparities. He’s promised to break up the largest