Do you want to know what Biden is threatening? TikTok economics may hold clues.

Look at the economic data and you’d think young voters are riding high right now. Unemployment remains low. There are plenty of job opportunities. Inequality has fallen, wage growth is finally outpacing inflation and the economy has grown rapidly this year.

Look at TikTok and you get a very different impression — one that seems more in line with both consumer confidence data and President Biden’s performance in political polls.

Some of the economy-related trends gaining traction on TikTok are nothing short of disastrous. The term ‘silent depression’ has recently gained popularity golf by viral videos. Clamps critical of capitalism are common. On Instagram, jokes about the poor affordability of housing are a genre in themselves.

Social media reflects – and possibly fuels – a deep-seated fear about the economy that shows up in surveys of younger consumers and in political polls. It suggests that even as the job market booms, people are focusing on long-standing issues such as housing affordability when assessing the economy.

The economic conversation taking place virtually could provide insight into the stark divide between optimistic economic data and pessimistic sentiments, a divide that has puzzled political strategists and economists.

Consumer sentiment has never been higher this is perpetually depressive when unemployment was so consistently low. And voters rate Mr. Biden poorly on the economic front, despite rapid growth and a strong labor market. Young people are especially gloomy: a recent poll by The New York Times and Siena College found that 59 percent of voters under 30 rated the economy as “poor.”

That’s where social media can provide insight. Popular interest determines what content plays well – especially on TikTok, where going viral is often the goal. The platforms are also an important disseminator of information and sentiment.

“A lot of people get their information from TikTok, but even if you don’t, your friends do, so you’re still being funneled into the echo chamber,” said Kyla Scanlon, a content creator focused on economic issues that post carefully examined explainers on TikTok, Instagram and X.

Ms. Scanlon rose to prominence in the traditional news media, in part for coining and popularizing the term “atmospheric cession‘ for how bad consumers felt in 2022 – but she thinks 2023 will worsen even further.

“I think people have gotten angrier,” she said. “I think we’re actually in a worse mood now.”

Surveys suggest that people from Generation Z, born after 1996, get their news largely from social media and messaging apps. And the share of American adults who turn to Especially TikTok for information has risen steadily. Facebook is still a bigger news source because it has more users, but about 43 percent of adults who use TikTok get news from it regularly, according to one new survey by the Pew Research Center.

It’s hard to say for sure whether negative news on social media is causing bad feelings about the economy or the Biden administration. Data and surveys struggle to capture exactly what effect specific news outlets — especially newer ones — have on people’s perceptions, says Katerina Eva Matsa, director of news and information research at the Pew Research Center.

“Is the news – the way it has developed – causing people to view things negatively?” she asked. It’s hard to say, she explained, but “the way you’re bombarded, enmeshed in all this information, may have contributed to this.”

Biden’s reelection campaign team is aware that TikTok has displaced X, formerly known as Twitter, as a crucial source of information for many young voters this election cycle — and is aware of how negative this tends to be. White House officials say some of these messages accurately reflect the economic experiences of the messengers, but others border on disinformation that social media platforms should police.

Rob Flaherty, Mr. Biden’s deputy campaign manager, said the campaign was working with content creators on TikTok in an effort to amplify “a positive, affirming message” about the economy.

Promoting a few political campaign posts Mr. Biden’s jobs record have managed to collect thousands of likes. But the ‘Silent Depression’ posts have attracted hundreds of thousands of people – a sign of how much negativity is taking over.

In those videos, influencers compare how easy it was to make ends meet economically in 1930 versus 2023. The videos are misleading and ignore the crucial fact that’s about one in four adults was unemployed in 1933, compared to four in 100 today. And the data they cite often comes from unreliable sources.

But the housing affordability trend highlighted in the videos is based in reality. It has become increasingly difficult for young people to afford a home. The cost of one typical house was 2.4 times as normal household income around 1940, when government records begin. Today it is 5.8 times.

It’s not just housing that’s making young people feel like they’re falling behind, either, if you ask Freddie Smith, a 35-year-old real estate agent in Orlando, Florida, who made a particularly popular video about “Silent Depression.” Recently it has also included the costs of gas, groceries, cars and rent.

“I think it’s the perfect storm,” Mr. Smith said. “It’s this tug-of-war that millennials and Gen Z are facing right now.”

Inflation has cooled significantly since peaking in the summer of 2022, which the Biden administration has hailed as a victory. Yet that only means that prices will no longer rise as quickly. The main costs remain noticeably higher than a few years ago. Messages are Much more expensive than in 2019. For example, gas hovered around $2.60 per gallon in early 2020 but is now around $3.40.

Those higher prices don’t necessarily mean people are worse off: household incomes have also risen, giving people more money to cover higher costs. Consumer spending data shows that people under 25 – and even 35 – have spent roughly the same or smaller share of their annual budget on groceries and gasoline compared to before the pandemic, at least on average.

“I think things just feel harder,” says Betsey Stevenson, a professor of public policy and economics at the University of Michigan, explaining that people have what economists call a “money illusion” and view the value of a dollar in fixed terms.

And housing is truly taking up a larger share of young consumers’ budgets than in pre-pandemic years, as rents, home prices and mortgage costs have all increased.

In addition to the awards, student loan content has also become popular in TikTok conversations (#studentloans has 1.3 billion views), and many of the posts are dissatisfying.

Mr. Biden’s student loan initiatives have been a rollercoaster for millions of young Americans. Last year, he proposed forgiving as much as $20,000 in debt for borrowers making less than $125,000 a year. that was estimated at $400 billion for decades, only to see the Supreme Court reject the initiative this summer.

Mr. Biden has continued to push more tailored efforts, including $127 billion in total loan forgiveness for 3.6 million borrowers. But last month his government also ended a pandemic freeze on loan payments that applied to all borrowers — some 40 million people.

The government has tried to inject more positive programming into the social media discussion. Mr. Biden met with about 60 TikTok creators to explain his original student loan forgiveness plan shortly after announcing it. The campaign team also sent videos to key creators for them to potentially share, of young people crying when they heard their loans had been forgiven.

The Biden campaign does not pay these creators or try to dictate what they say, although it does advertise aggressively on digital platforms, Mr. Flaherty said.

“It has to sound authentic,” he said.