Majority of Americans Back New Stimulus Checks To Combat Inflation

[Hydrogen]

A majority of Americans support the idea of new stimulus checks to combat inflation, according to a poll conducted exclusively for Newsweek.

The survey found 63 percent of respondents said they agree—with 42 percent saying they "strongly agree"—when asked if the federal government should issue new stimulus checks to tackle inflation.

Eighteen percent of respondents disagreed, while 15 percent said they neither agree nor disagree. Three percent said they do not know in response to the question.

The poll, conducted by Redfield & Wilton Strategies between October 23 and 24, surveyed 1,500 eligible voters in the U.S.

Inflation and economic concerns have been key issues for Americans as they begin voting in midterm elections, where Democrats' control of Congress is at stake.

Inflation reached a higher than expected rate of 8.2 percent in September, and Republicans have heaped blame on President Joe Biden and congressional Democrats for the skyrocketing prices that American households across the country are grappling with.

Democrats got a boost earlier this week as the economy grew at a 2.6 percent annual rate from July through September, giving the Federal Reserve room to continue aggressively raising borrowing costs to combat inflation.

Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell warned in August that the Fed's hikes will bring "pain" to households and businesses, but said "a failure to restore price stability would mean far greater pain."

And while some states have been sending out direct payments to help struggling Americans, economists have argued that stimulus checks could make inflation worse rather than better.

"In this economic environment, stimulus checks cause inflation, they do not reduce it," Diana Furchtgott-Roth, a scholar at The Heritage Foundation and former chief economist for the Department of Labor, told Newsweek.

"This is because America has 10 million job openings that need to be filled. This drives up the cost of labor as employers compete for workers. It makes goods more expensive because firms are producing less than they prefer. It makes services more expensive because service-providing organizations, such as restaurants, hotels and airline companies cannot provide all the services that consumers demand."

Furchtgott-Roth said prior stimulus payments had "encouraged people to stay home and reduced their incentive to take a job."

"The labor force participation rate is about one percentage point below its pre-pandemic level because more people are staying home," she said.

"America already has 3 to 4 million people fewer working than would be the case if it had the same labor force participation rate as in January 2020. The last thing that America needs as Chairman Powell tries to fight inflation is more stimulus payments."



https://www.newsweek.com/majority-americans-back-stimulus-checks-inflation-poll-1755636

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It has been longer than 24 hours since I proposed crypto having the potential to solve everything ranging from inflation to indigestion. I'm long overdue for crypto being used to fill gaps in income which are traditionally filled by stimulus checks. How might it work. We already have crypto alternatives to UBI which could be applied to stimulus programs. Concepts of free money and free value being so extremely popular in this day and age. Isn't it surprising that we lack a greater abundance of proposals for solving issues like wage deterioration and inflation? If Elon Musk can build electric cars and buy twitter, certainly someone out there must have a good idea of how to address reduction of consumer buying power in relation to rising inflation.

Simulus checks (Milton Friedman called them helicopter drops) are near to 100 year old technology. If most people wouldn't drive a car that was built 100 years ago. Knowing that modern society offers better options. Perhaps its realistic to say that we should also have good modern options for handling things like inflation. The lack of invention and innovation in these areas could mean we're long overdue for a big leap forward. There is a high potential for innovation in the field, which could translate to material and monetary gains for the person who invents it.

Do the majority of people support additional stimulus checks btw. I always have to ask. Its difficult to tell where public opinion stands.

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[Gyfts]

Well if the poll asks people if they want free money, should we really be surprised at the results?

Milton Freidman would also say that stimulus money spending would have favorable effects until people realized they've been fooled. I thought with USD inflation being 8.3% we're at the stage of acceptance that Americans had been robbed of their purchasing power, but seemingly they want to double down. The COVID spending caused the inflation crisis and it isn't unique to USD that it's happening either -- nearly every currency that saw mass amounts of COVID related printing is experience high inflation. And people expect the economic impacts of inflation to resolve itself by even more spending, unbelievable.

Once you introduce people to the drug that is social welfare without any strings attached (UBI, essentially), they don't want to let off. It's why money printing's dangerous. It takes no effort for a politician to promise free stimulus if the ramifications of said stimulus will impact people years after they left office through inflation. They don't have to deal with the political blowback, just reap the rewards of giving people free money.

[Sithara007]

This is really hilarious. So they believe that printing out even more money will combat inflation? The funny thing about stimulus is that only a small fraction of the money actually ends up with the common people. The vast majority of it is earmarked for various unions (especially the left-leaning ones), who have an aversion to hard-work and an addiction for free money. Within the next 12 hours or so, the midterm elections will be over in the United States. Biden can do whatever he want, without worrying about any electoral setbacks.

[stompix]

It has been longer than 24 hours since I proposed crypto having the potential to solve everything ranging from inflation to indigestion.

Really? Never thought that! 
If you were asking me out of the blue I could have sworn that there is no day in which you find a problem and you find the solution with crypto 

I'm long overdue for crypto being used to fill gaps in income which are traditionally filled by stimulus checks. How might it work. We already have crypto alternatives to UBI which could be applied to stimulus programs. Concepts of free money and free value being so extremely popular in this day and age.

Yeah, let's print some cryptos because well, being cryptos they don't act as Fiat when they are in oversupply.
Terra has defiantly proved that rptiing 6 trillion (?) I don't remember the number but I know they multiplied the coins in circulation by more than 10x in a day won't affect the value at all.

You don't fight inflation by printing any kind of money, you fight inflation by directing your attacks at one or even both of the triggers, demand, and supply, you have two choices, you increase the supply of goods by investing in manufacturing, cutting taxes, subsidizing production (not the product) or you deal with the demand trying to make people unwilling to spend all their money.
For the thousand time, everyone should look at how Japan was unable to reach desired inflation rates because the people didn't want to spend.

Well if the poll asks people if they want free money, should we really be surprised at the results?

Let's make a poll about a fork of Bitcoin in which everyone in the world gets a few satoshi for free.
You're not going to like the result if we let only newbies vote for it!

[pooya87]

certainly someone out there must have a good idea of how to address reduction of consumer buying power in relation to rising inflation.

The solution is easy: stop printing more money.
The economy experts have realized that all the things they have been teaching so far have been wrong. The economy as a whole is flawed by design and unless it is fundamentally changed, we can't see any changes in inflation. In other words they have to print more money because that is how the economy is designed to work.

This is why the solution is not bitcoin or any other cryptocurrency because they too will enter into the same flawed economic environment and won't be able to change. This is why bitcoin is sometimes referred to as the "exit" not something you put into that flawed system.

Do the majority of people support additional stimulus checks btw. I always have to ask. Its difficult to tell where public opinion stands.

They do and that's the bigger problem. Majority of people aren't educated enough to understand that the "free" money they are receiving is not free at all. In fact it is coming out of their own pockets. Not to mention that the government propaganda will not let them know that either hence the name "stimulus" instead of "inflation guaranteed" checks.

A better question I'm interested in is how many of them are going to invest their checks in bitcoin this time. Last time there were some people who did it and price was between $3k and $4k...

[Lucius]

Really? Never thought that! 
If you were asking me out of the blue I could have sworn that there is no day in which you find a problem and you find the solution with crypto 

Every problem can be solved with one token, the OP has supported this idea for a long time, even though those who think for themselves know that all these tokens and stablecoins (which in fact are not) are the biggest source of extremely negative consequences in the world of cryptocurrencies. For those short-witted, we only need to mention that South Korean scammer and fugitive who directly caused at least 30% of the BTC price drop or the current situation with another token in the direction of another fanatic Mr. Bankman.


As for stimulus checks, I would say "give them one every month", but everything that happens in the US unfortunately has consequences for most of the world. I thought that the story was over since there is no free lunch, but people seem to be only concerned about the moment they live in, and the fact that they will pay for that lunch very expensively in the future doesn't seem to worry them too much.

[davis196]

Inflation will be fought only by taking more money from the people, not by giving the people more money for nothing.
Some questions are simply too dumb to be asked on polls and surveys. "Do you want the government to give you money?" is one of them.
Crypto might be capable of fighting indigestion after the crypto winter goes away. Many crypto traders and HODLers have an "upset stomach" because of the bear markets.

[Rruchi man]

The funny thing about stimulus is that only a small fraction of the money actually ends up with the common people.

Scammers will celebrate on hearing this sort of news, more stimulus checks mean more money they can divert by impersonation and stealing the identities of citizens entitled to such benefits to apply for the stimulus packages. To really ensure that Americans get this stimulus checks to assist in this inflation, the authorities will have to do a better job in increasing security and ensuring the process is not easy for scammers to infiltrate.

[justdimin]

This is really hilarious. So they believe that printing out even more money will combat inflation? The funny thing about stimulus is that only a small fraction of the money actually ends up with the common people. The vast majority of it is earmarked for various unions (especially the left-leaning ones), who have an aversion to hard-work and an addiction for free money. Within the next 12 hours or so, the midterm elections will be over in the United States. Biden can do whatever he want, without worrying about any electoral setbacks.

Do you really expect Americans to understand about economy? This is the same nation that pays more for insurance than they would pay as a tax, and still not get free healthcare.

Calculate it and you would be laughing out a lot, they are paying insurance +hospital bills that amount to maybe double the cost of what the tax would be, and they are calculating the tax from the current prices instead of lowering it because it would be just one buyer (the government) so it would be even cheaper, and they yet still do not go with healthcare because "I rather pay more for myself than let others get free healthcare!!!!", it’s America, they are not really that smart. Don't expect too much from them.

[bittraffic]

They survey 1500 voters, they should be surveying 1500 economists. But I say go for it, this could be difficult for stimi distribution is like crashing USD value in the past pace but inflation is really hard to fight, countless countries failed. But whenever there are fewer manufacturing companies in the US, the harder it is to fight inflation because of less jobs. It's time to bring companies back up running in US.

The funny thing about stimulus is that only a small fraction of the money actually ends up with the common people.

Scammers will celebrate on hearing this sort of news, more stimulus checks mean more money they can divert by impersonation and stealing the identities of citizens entitled to such benefits to apply for the stimulus packages. To really ensure that Americans get this stimulus checks to assist in this inflation, the authorities will have to do a better job in increasing security and ensuring the process is not easy for scammers to infiltrate.

But this is also a good opportunity for the US to introduce the adoption of the FEDnow for the stimulus package.

[arallmuus]

This is really hilarious. So they believe that printing out even more money will combat inflation? The funny thing about stimulus is that only a small fraction of the money actually ends up with the common people.

Its a way or another to atleast 'help' some people that are affected from the inflation. Its not a way to actually stop the inflation but atleast they are doing something about it altough its only a short term measurement. Well if the average joe got some money to help them put food on their plate then the goverment will have less things to be complained about, atleast this is their thought

[hatshepsut93]

I don't see how crypto or tokens can do anything here. They only have value if someone is willing to buy them. What value would a token have if it was printed out of thin air and airdropped to the masses who will dump it to pay their bills and buy food. Printing fiat works because it already exists so adding more only dilutes the current value. And alternatively you can tax the ultra-rich to redistribtue the wealth to the poor.

[Sithara007]

This is really hilarious. So they believe that printing out even more money will combat inflation? The funny thing about stimulus is that only a small fraction of the money actually ends up with the common people. The vast majority of it is earmarked for various unions (especially the left-leaning ones), who have an aversion to hard-work and an addiction for free money. Within the next 12 hours or so, the midterm elections will be over in the United States. Biden can do whatever he want, without worrying about any electoral setbacks.

Do you really expect Americans to understand about economy? This is the same nation that pays more for insurance than they would pay as a tax, and still not get free healthcare.

Calculate it and you would be laughing out a lot, they are paying insurance +hospital bills that amount to maybe double the cost of what the tax would be, and they are calculating the tax from the current prices instead of lowering it because it would be just one buyer (the government) so it would be even cheaper, and they yet still do not go with healthcare because "I rather pay more for myself than let others get free healthcare!!!!", it’s America, they are not really that smart. Don't expect too much from them.

Completely agreed. Medical care in the United States is among the biggest scams on this planet. I will just give one example. A vial of insulin costs around $1.50 here in India. The same thing costs around $100 per vial in the United States. The cost of manufacturing is just around $1 per vial. So why this big difference is there? Getting a profit margin of 20% or 30% is still OK. But here, the profit margin is 10,000%. I don't want to divert the topic, but this has been going on for many decades and it is surprising that ordinary Americans are perfectly fine with it.

[Poker Player]

Yeah right, most "Americans" or rather those who answer that survey, want to be given money for doing nothing. Surprise! If you give me money for doing nothing I'll take it too.

But then those people I do not want to hear them complaining about inflation, as in the end all these measures of public spending what they do is that prices rise more and more, and the purchasing power ends up staying the same or worse than before showering people with that money.

[Kakmakr]

I disagree...

It would have been money better spend, if they used it to train better skilled employees and also to fund startup companies to create more jobs. They are in that situation, because millions of people lost their jobs during the Covid pandemic and then the WAR between the Ukraine and Russia disrupted Oil production and Oil prices around the world.

The printing of more money and the stimulus efforts are mostly wasted on people with bad spending habits. "Give someone a fish and you feed him for a day... but show someone how to fish and you feed him for life." 

[bittraffic]

Yeah right, most "Americans" or rather those who answer that survey, want to be given money for doing nothing. Surprise! If you give me money for doing nothing I'll take it too.

But then those people I do not want to hear them complaining about inflation, as in the end all these measures of public spending what they do is that prices rise more and more, and the purchasing power ends up staying the same or worse than before showering people with that money.

Or the worse which is people may have the stimi checks but have no products to buy since Walmart and other groceries stores have already closed. The supply chain was disrupted globally and products don't reach our shores anymore.

While we stimulus money from the government, we have nothing to buy.  It's like you need to buy a bottle of water to relieve your thirst while you have a bag of gold and are in the middle of a desert.