'Vibes' staffer advises Biden-Harris admin on economic policy based on social media trends: report

The Biden-Harris administration has an "economic vibes" staffer who tracks trends on social media related to the US economy. The idea is that social media trends show how people are feeling, and the feels should be used to influence governance style and policy.

According to Axios, the dubbed economic "vibe-rarian," Molly Opinsky, will often counsel Council of Economic Advisors chair Jared Bernstein on the reported "economic vibes" going on in the country. The outlet reported that Opinsky will share what she sees on social media platforms such as TikTok with Bernstein. The Gen-Z aged staffer was previously a staff assistant in the House of Representatives just a couple years ago, per her LinkedIn page.



In one instance, Opinsky started to see videos of grocery "hauls" popping up on TikTok, where influencers will post videos about their purchases alongside a complaint about the high prices caused by inflation.

Bernstein and other top Biden economic advisors claim that these posts are not necessarily indicative of an economic trend, but they should not be discounted. "People are the best arbiters of how they're feeling about the economy," Bernstein told reporters. "I just think it's very hard to do this job effectively absent empathy, absent trying to understand what people are going through."

"I've never seen a divergence between the hard economic statistics and the vibes as large as we saw in the past few years — not even close," UMich econ professor Justin Wolfers told Axios. "The greater the disjunction between vibes and reality, the more it calls for [an] understanding of what people are feeling."

Many in the Biden camp have pointed to lowering inflation rates as well as jobs numbers in order to tell Americans that the economy is doing well, however, the last reported inflation rate was 2.9 percent in July, according to the Consumer Price Index. This is still nearly 50 percent above optimal levels, which many economists have said rests at two percent. Many jobs in the market have also been going to noncitizens in the country.

According to the Center for immigration studies, since 2019 about 75 percent of all job growth has gone to those who are not citizens of the US, both illegally and legally in the country.

Additionally, the portion of the jobs added to the economy in recent months that are “private production and nonsupervisory employees” are not being added at usual levels. These jobs can be described as the “typical American worker” and are usually 80 percent of jobs in the US but have made up a lower percentage of the jobs added in recent months.