Influencers are increasingly using TikTok to complain about the economy and their financial future, giving rise to fears among Joe Biden’s team that his 2024 election chances could be imperiled by the platform.
Hashtags such as ‘Silent Recession’ are gaining traction online, which the White House worries is undermining their message about ‘Bidenomics’ showing positive signs.
Generation Z – those born after 1996 – and Millennials combined could account for as many votes next year as the Baby Boomers and their elders: the groups that have made up a majority of voters for decades.
As a result, the White House is trying to dispel the narrative of a failing economy.
Rob Flaherty, a deputy campaign manager for Biden, said they were working with content creators on TikTok in an effort to ‘amplify a positive, affirmative message’ about the economy.
Joe Biden, seen on Thursday at the APEC summit, met with TikTokers to explain student loan forgiveness – just part of the outreach the White House is trying for Gen-Z
William Dawson has received 157,000 likes for his August video complaining about the state of America’s economy
Biden met with about 60 TikTok creators to explain his student loan forgiveness plan, and campaign staff sent videos to key creators, for possible sharing, of young people crying when they learned their loans had been forgiven.
But the student loan promise remains mired in the courts.
The Supreme Court struck down the loan forgiveness program in late June, but his administration has found ways to cancel more than $48 billion in debt since then. It has not, however, received credit for its efforts.
A few political campaign posts promoting Biden’s jobs record have managed to rack up thousands of likes, The New York Times noted.
But the ‘Silent Depression’ posts have received hundreds of thousands of likes.
One content creator, William Dawson, has received 157,000 likes for his August video complaining about the state of America’s economy.
He said that, during the Great Depression of the 1930s, 48 percent of people aged 25-29 lived at home, but now that figure was 52 percent.
He said one such person in 1930 made $88,000 a year, adjusted for inflation, compared to $35-45,000 today.
‘New cars are unaffordable; new houses are unaffordable,’ he said.
‘To move to a new place and rent somewhere else is unaffordable. It’s terrible what’s going on.’
Kyla Scanlon creates popular TikToks explaining economic concepts
Another popular TikToker, Kyla Scanlon, has had 2,100 likes in under two weeks for her video explaining the housing crisis.
Scanlon briefly explains how high mortgage rates are making the market stagnate, with boomers staying in their large houses and younger people not wanting to move on, because the current rates are so much higher than their existing rates.
The cost of a typical house was 2.4 times the typical household income around 1940: Today, it’s 5.8 times.
Scanlon, who specializes in economic explainers, told The New York Times that content creators were aware of their power.
‘A lot of people get their information from TikTok, but even if you don’t, your friends do, so you still get looped into the echo chamber,’ she said.
‘I think people have gotten angrier.’
Freddie Smith, a 35-year-old real estate agent in Orlando, made a TikTok complaining about the costs of housing, rent, cars, gas and groceries.
Inflation has been reduced from its peak last year, but groceries remain significantly more expensive than in 2019.
Gas was around $2.60 a gallon at the start of 2020, but is around $3.40 now.
‘I think it’s the perfect storm,’ he said. ‘It’s this tug of war that millennials and Gen Z are facing right now.’