The inflation situation is pretty simple

Supply-chain problems are overhyped — we did a lot of stimulus, and people are buying a lot of stuff

(Xinhua via Getty Images)

A few months ago, I wrote but never published a piece called “Joe Biden should brag more about the good economy.” And recently I’ve heard more Democrats advocating for exactly what I was arguing in the post — media coverage of the economy is excessively gloomy, people are doing well, and the White House should try to talk it up.

The problem is that I don’t think that narrative is true anymore, and Democrats are doing themselves a disservice by ignoring the fact that things have actually taken a turn for the worse.

One way you can measure this is with Citigroup’s Economic Surprise Index, which shows that for months now, economic data has been coming in worse than expected after a nice run of positive surprises.