"The U.S. economy grew 1.7% in the fourth quarter, a 6.9% annual rate and its largest one-year jump since 1984" a New York Times article reports. A similar article by USA Today writes the "economy grew 5.7% last year, its best showing since 1984, as activity revived amid a pandemic." Within the past couple of weeks, we have seen a flux of media articles reporting on the "economy," parroting the idea that America is getting "back on track" despite rising COVID-19 hospitalizations. However, while Wall Street investors and CEOs are raking in record profits, workers are experiencing a rapid decline in their standard of living. The economy, to quote Adam Johnson and Nima Shirazi, seems to thrive only "when business owners and job creators are making record profits, and failing when investments in social programs have simply grown too high." In other words, there's a deliberate pro-capital framing when legacy media outlets refer to the "economy," a term that is in no way reflective of the material conditions of the working class. This is especially true during the COVID-19 pandemic, when media outlets have written hundreds, if not thousands of articles, trying to maintain faith in our current economic system, i.e., neoliberal capitalism. In this article, we will explore how the media's usage of the "economy" fails to address the working-class and how this particular euphemism is ideologically motivated.
Now while the "economy" does not adequately reflect the conditions of average working-class American, it is undeniably an important issue among voters and why wouldn't it be? We all want some form of social mobility. We want a living wage. We want to be able to afford housing, healthcare, and higher education. It's a matter of life and death. Yet, in a society that glorifies the "free market" and deregulatory policies, much of these necessities are rationed in accordance with one's income. It is important to note that the federal minimum wage is still $7.25, which only adds up to $15,080 a year if one were to work a 40-hour workweek every week; $15/hr only amounts to $30,160 a year. This doesn't even account for taxes and various forms of wage theft, which amounts to tens of billions of dollars lost to workers every year (see Figure 1). Wage labor and wealth polarization are unsustainable. There's a huge discrepancy between a CEO's wealth and the average worker's wealth. According to a CNN article, billionaires' net worth "grew by more than $3.6 trillion [globally] in 2020 alone, boosting their share of global household wealth to 3.5%." Simultaneously, "the pandemic pushed about 100 million people into extreme poverty, raising the global total to 711 million in 2021." On top of the US government slashing welfare and unemployment insurance, many Americans are not realizing the "American Dream" and booming "economy" that legacy media constantly espouses. Millions of workers are trapped in poverty and remained unemployed, with little to no way out. It is ingrained into our system as employers directly benefit from a desperate, unemployed workforce. The "economy" and other economic jargon serve to hide this disparity, to create an image of America in which everyone is "created equal" and where social safety nets are deemed as a "failure."
As with the majority of PR, mass media intends to outright ignore the plight of the working class; it needs to manufacture the idea of a properly functioning economic system. As we alluded to previously, there's an inherent ideological framing that corporate outlets such as the New York Times use when talking about the "economy." The existence of neoliberalism is dependent upon faith in the system, supporting the assertion that the true purpose of mass media is to ensure that the dominant ideas of the ruling class are the dominant ideas of society. It is undeniably true that neoliberalism exacerbates inequality; Pinochet's Chile is a prime example of how "free-market" ideology is inherently destructive to workers' standard of living. When we talk about the "economy," it would be more accurate to say that it is reflective of the business class' profits. Every presidential election, for the most part, addresses the economy in some shape or form; the hallmarks of a good leader, to a majority of voters, is how the question of the "economy" will be handled. A Pew Research Center poll supports this fact, with 79% of voters saying that the economy would be a deciding factor in who they were going to vote for in the 2020 presidential election (see Figure 2). This trend was evident in 2016 as well, with the economy remaining as the frontmost concern of the 2016 electorate (84%). Thus, it wouldn't be unreasonable to assert that the pro-capital framing of the "economy" influences the way that many (but not all) voters may think about the economy. It is imperative for the working-class especially to recognize the myriad of ways in which media outlets blur the lines of class warfare. As evidenced above, economic growth (GDP) does not translate to the economic mobility of the working class. Its fetishization by MSM and libertarian think-tanks is merely a tactic employed to manufacture support of an economic system that is actively consolidating wealth away from workers, while simultaneously downplaying the never-ending growth of wealth polarization in American society. The purpose of this article isn't to deny the existence of the economy or the study of economics. The economy is very real and has very real material consequences. However, the abstract and "objective" conception of the "economy" that legacy media have consistently espoused is completely one-sided and framed in favor of only one viewpoint: corporations and profits.
Reviewed by Justin Quilici
on
January 31, 2022
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