Influencers are increasingly using TikTok to complain about the economy and their financial futures, sparking fears among Joe Biden’s team that the platform could jeopardize his 2024 election chances.
Hashtags such as “Silent Recession” are gaining popularity online, causing the White House to worry that their “Bidenomics” message, which is showing positive signs, will be undermined.
Generation Z – those born after 1996 – and the millennials together could generate as many votes next year as the baby boomers and their elders: the groups that have made up the majority of voters for decades.
As a result, the White House is trying to dispel the narrative of a failing economy.
Rob Flaherty, deputy campaign manager for Biden, said they were working with content creators on TikTok in an effort to amplify “a positive, affirming message” about the economy.
Joe Biden, seen at the APEC Summit on Thursday, met with TikTokers to explain student loan forgiveness — just part of the outreach the White House is trying to do for Gen-Z
William Dawson has received 157,000 likes for his August video lamenting the state of the US economy
Biden met with about 60 TikTok creators to explain his student loan forgiveness plan, and campaign aides sent videos to key creators for possible sharing of young people crying when they heard their loans had been forgiven .
But the student loan promise remains stuck in the courts.
The Supreme Court struck down the loan forgiveness program in late June, but his administration has since found ways to forgive more than $48 billion in debt. However, it has not received recognition for its efforts.
A pair of political campaign posts promoting Biden’s jobs record have managed to rack up thousands of likes, The New York Times noted.
But the posts about ‘Silent Depression’ have received hundreds of thousands of likes.
One content creator, William Dawson, has received 157,000 likes for his August video lamenting the state of the US economy.
He said that during the Great Depression of the 1930s, 48 percent of people aged 25 to 29 lived at home, but now that figure was 52 percent.
He said such a person earned $88,000 a year in 1930, adjusted for inflation, compared to $35-45,000 today.
‘New cars are unaffordable; new houses are unaffordable,” he said.
‘Moving to a new place and renting somewhere else is unaffordable. It’s terrible what’s going on.’
Kyla Scanlon makes popular TikToks that explain economic concepts
Another popular TikToker, Kyla Scanlon, has received 2,100 likes in less than two weeks for her video explaining the housing crisis.
Scanlon briefly explains how high mortgage rates are causing the market to stagnate, with boomers staying in their big homes and young people not wanting to move because current interest rates are so much higher than their existing interest rates.
The cost of a typical home around 1940 was 2.4 times the average family income: today it is 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’re still 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 fallen from last year’s highs, but groceries remain significantly more expensive than in 2019.
Gas was about $2.60 per gallon in early 2020, but is now around $3.40.
“I think it’s the perfect storm,” he said. “It’s this tug-of-war that millennials and Gen Z are dealing with right now.”