LIZ PEEK: The Trump economy is doing better than the media want to admit

Sixty-one percent of Americans think the economy is headed the wrong way while their actual paychecks are stretching further and the gap between rich and poor is narrowing. That gap between the numbers and the mood is the real story here, and it's worth sitting with instead of just cheering the stats and moving on.

Part of that gap is honestly earned. People remember what a cart of groceries cost three years ago, and no chart of inflation-adjusted wage growth erases that memory fast. But part of it is also a coverage problem. When wages rise under a Democratic administration, it's framed as validation. When it happens under Trump, it gets buried under a headline about tariffs or a market wobble, footnoted rather than led with. Readers aren't dumb. If the coverage consistently undersells good news, they'll stay pessimistic even when their own numbers say otherwise.

Income inequality shrinking is not a small thing to bury, either. That's been a Democratic talking point for a decade, the supposed proof that only their policies can rebalance the scales. Now it's happening under the other side and suddenly it's a footnote in a Liz Peek column instead of a banner story everywhere else.

None of this means people should feel richer than they are, or that price fatigue isn't real. But there's a difference between skepticism earned by experience and a narrative gap manufactured by omission. Right now we're getting both, and only one of them is actually about the economy.