A Nobel Prize-winning economist bashed President Donald Trump's "false" claims about the state of the U.S. economy in a new Substack essay published on Sunday.
Paul Krugman, who won the 2008 Nobel Prize in economics for his work on trade theory, argued in the essay that Trump is "simply lying" about the state of the economy. Although data indicate the economy is faring better than popular sentiment might lead someone to believe, Krugman added that there are several warning signs, such as the price of groceries continuing to increase.
"Donald Trump continues to claim that grocery prices are 'way down,'" Krugman wrote. "Yet anyone who does their own food shopping – unlike Trump -- can tell you that Trump’s statement is false."
Krugman added that Trump's economy has induced what's known as a "vibecession," or an economy that feels like it's in a recession to consumers even if economic data doesn't support that conclusion.
"Many observers have compared Trump’s predicament with the problems faced by the Biden administration, whose attempts to highlight good economic data alienated many voters who felt that their concerns weren’t being taken seriously," Krugman added. "In one important way this is false equivalence: Biden and his officials were pointing to actual data that did indeed seem to paint a relatively positive picture of the economy. Trump and company, by contrast, are simply lying."
"But although Biden and his people were honest, while Trump and his people aren’t, it’s true that we now have two presidencies in a row in which Americans are far more negative about the economy than the usual measures would have predicted," he concluded.