Americans are right to feel miserable about the economy, Reagan economist Art Laffer says

• Polls show that around half of Americans think the US economy is in a poor state.
• They're right to be miserable, said Art Laffer, a former top economic advisor to President Reagan.

Americans are right to be feeling so down about the economy, according to Art Laffer.

The former economic advisor to President Ronald Reagan said Saturday that he can understand why people's views on the jobs market, inflation, and growth remain negative, despite a strong 2023 where price pressures cooled and the US managed to dodge a long-expected recession.

"Let me just give you where the huge disconnect comes here," he told Fox Business. "People care about jobs, not unemployment rates, and so when you look at total jobs, it's way down."

"The second thing that's really important is people worry about prices, not inflation … even though the inflation rate is down quite substantially, the prices are not down at all, and it's prices that are killing people, so they obviously are upset."

"The last thing is GDP growth this last quarter was almost 5%, which is a very nice number, except GDP is what's really low. It's not kept track with what happened after Trump left office," Laffer added.

The unemployment rate held steady at below 4% last year, while inflation has slowed from four-decade highs, in part because of the Federal Reserve's aggressive interest-rate hikes.

Meanwhile, the US economy grew at its fastest pace in two years over the third quarter, with GDP up by a stronger-than-expected 4.9%.

The White House has repeatedly championed "Bidenomics" as a way of creating jobs, pulling down inflation, and boosting growth – but Americans still feel miserable about the economy, according to surveys.

50% of respondents to a November Gallup poll said they felt the economy was in a "poor" state, while just 2% said it was in excellent health.

Gas and food prices are still elevated even if they're no longer rising at such a rapid pace, while around 60% of workers say their wages haven't kept pace with inflation over the past 12 months, according to a survey by Bankrate.

As well as serving as a member of Reagan's Economic Policy Board, Laffer is known for his work on the Laffer curve, which illustrates the relationship between taxation rates and a government's tax income.