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Skip to contentSkip to site index Search & Section Navigation Section Navigation SEARCH SUBSCRIBE FOR $1/WEEKLog in Monday, February 12, 2024 Today’s Paper SUBSCRIBE FOR $1/WEEK * liveUpdates * Who’s Running for President? * G.O.P. Delegate Tracker * The Age Issue * Can Democrats Replace Biden? * Listen to ‘The Run-Up’ Advertisement SKIP ADVERTISEMENT Subscriber-only Newsletter THE TILT WANT TO UNDERSTAND 2024? LOOK AT 1948. Americans were angry with Truman because of high prices in the aftermath of World War II, even as other economic signals looked promising. * Share full article * * * 433 * Read in app By Nate Cohn Jan. 4, 2024 You’re reading The Tilt newsletter, for Times subscribers only. Nate Cohn, The Times’s chief political analyst, makes sense of the latest political data. Try it for 4 weeks. Image President Truman and his wife, Bess, during his 1948 whistle-stop campaign.Credit...Associated Press In the era of modern consumer confidence data, there has never been an economy quite like this recent one — with prices rising so high and unemployment staying so low. But just a few years before the consumer sentiment survey index became widely available in 1952, there was a period of economic unrest that bears a striking resemblance to today: the aftermath of World War II, when Americans were near great prosperity yet found themselves frustrated by the economy and their president. If there’s a time that might make sense of today’s political moment, postwar America might just be it. Many analysts today have been perplexed by public dissatisfaction with the economy, as unemployment and gross domestic product have remained strong and as inflation has slowed significantly after a steep rise. To some, public opinion and economic reality are so discordant that it requires a noneconomic explanation, sometimes called “vibes,” like the effect of social media or a pandemic hangover on the national mood. But in the era of modern economic data, Harry Truman was the only president besides Joe Biden to oversee an economy with inflation over 7 percent while unemployment stayed under 4 percent and G.D.P. growth kept climbing. Voters weren’t overjoyed then, either. Instead, they saw Mr. Truman as incompetent, feared another depression and doubted their economic future, even though they were at the dawn of postwar economic prosperity. Advertisement SKIP ADVERTISEMENT The source of postwar inflation was fundamentally similar to post-pandemic inflation. The end of wartime rationing unleashed years of pent-up consumer demand in an economy that hadn’t fully transitioned back to producing butter instead of guns. A year after the war, wartime price controls ended and inflation skyrocketed. A great housing crisis gripped the nation’s cities as millions of troops returned from overseas after 15 years of limited housing construction. Labor unrest roiled the nation and exacerbated production shortages. The most severe inflation of the last 100 years wasn’t in the 1970s, but in 1947, reaching around 20 percent. According to the historian James T. Patterson, “no domestic issue of these years did Truman more damage than the highly contentious question of what to do about wartime restraints on prices.” Subscribe to The Times to read as many articles as you like. Nate Cohn is The Times’s chief political analyst. He covers elections, public opinion, demographics and polling. More about Nate Cohn A version of this article appears in print on Jan. 7, 2024, Section A, Page 11 of the New York edition with the headline: Economy’s Up. Mood Is Down. What Gives? It’s Like 1948.. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe Read 433 Comments * Share full article * * * 433 * Read in app Advertisement SKIP ADVERTISEMENT COMMENTS 433 Want to Understand 2024? Look at 1948.Skip to Comments The comments section is closed. To submit a letter to the editor for publication, write to letters@nytimes.com. SITE INDEX SITE INFORMATION NAVIGATION * © 2024 The New York Times Company * NYTCo * Contact Us * Accessibility * Work with us * Advertise * T Brand Studio * Your Ad Choices * Privacy Policy * Terms of Service * Terms of Sale * Site Map * Canada * International * Help * Subscriptions Support independent journalism with a subscription. Already a subscriber? Log in. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Enjoy unlimited access to all of The Times. Includes news, games, recipes and more. Welcome offer $6.25 $1/week Billed as $4 every 4 weeks for your first 6 months. Cancel or pause anytime. 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