Opinion | Vaccines, inflation and abortion: 2022 in charts

After a few difficult years, 2022 felt like a step back from the brink. Covid scare has receded. The new president, who seemed to be on the brink of failure, was showered with handfuls of legislative success. And perhaps most importantly, Donald Trump’s control over much of the country has finally shown signs of starting to loosen.

But don’t uncork the champagne just yet. Inflation continued to plague the economy, resulting in huge interest rate hikes and stock market declines. International issues are escalating, from the standoff in Ukraine to rising tensions with China. The bellicose voices of the far right seemed to be getting louder and louder.

One of the pleasant surprises this year was the Democrats’ unexpected performance in the midterm elections. With President Biden’s approval ratings plummeting, history would have suggested a major victory for the Republican Party. We will probably lose 4 seats in the Senate and 40 seats in the House. Instead, Democrats ceded just nine seats to her in the House, narrowly losing control of the House and winning a seat in the Senate. (Notably, it was the first midterm election since 1934 that a party in power retained all incumbents in the Senate). In June he overturned Roe v. Wade’s judgment.

Access to abortion eroded almost immediately as anti-abortion “trigger laws” came into effect following the Supreme Court’s Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization ruling and greater restrictions passed by Republican-controlled state legislatures. By the end of 2022, 23% of U.S. women lived in states that effectively prohibited abortion. Many more women found themselves living in states with severe restrictions on how long abortions were allowed. These changes do not reflect public opinion. Since Dobbs, voters in Kansas, Kentucky and Montana have rejected anti-abortion ballot measures. I understand that you think it should be.

The economy remained the most important issue for most Americans as inflation peaked at 9.1% in June and prices continued to rise rapidly. Fortunately, the overall rate started to decline after that, and in November he was down to 7.1%. However, because food and energy prices are volatile, economists often pay attention to ‘core’ rates that exclude these categories. That rate was stubbornly high, his 6%, well above the Federal Reserve’s target of 2%. As the year progressed, the main driver of core inflation shifted from commodities (where coronavirus buying frenzy subsided) to services such as housing and travel and hospitality.

Sustained high inflation forced the Fed to catch up. The central bank imposed harsh rate hikes and predicted more rate hikes to come. As recently as a year ago, banks had predicted that by 2024, the federal funds rate would hardly exceed 2%. It is now expected to exceed 5% by 2023. Bank forecasts for inflation, unemployment and economic growth have all deteriorated over the course of the year. Even these forecasts may be overly optimistic: the Fed expects the economy to grow modestly in 2023, but most economists expect the economy to slip into recession by late 2023 or early 2024. I expect.

After two years of Covid dominating the headlines, the virus has almost disappeared as deaths fell from over 3,000 per day during Omicron’s surge in January to less than 400 per day near the end of the year. Disappeared from one side. The return to relative normalcy was welcomed, but too many Americans ignored public health officials’ requests and avoided the recommended boosters. For example, when Mayor Eric Adams appealed to New Yorkers to start wearing masks again and get boosters, there was no visible effect, and only 12% of residents received a fourth injection.

With COVID-19, the supply chain problems that have been plaguing businesses and consumers have begun to melt away. Shipping times from Asia, which hovered at less than 60 days before Covid and jumped to over 110 days at the beginning of 2022, have dropped to less than 80 days by the end of the year. Jan 2020 to Jan 2022 Shanghai’s transport cost index, which tripled over the period, fell to just 10% above its January 2020 level. Domestically, production continues to lag, with more than a third of his American manufacturing plants reporting shortages of materials and labor. This meant continued frustration for Americans to shop, whether it was the holiday season or other needs.

It’s been a busy year in Washington. Congress has passed important legislation to address weaknesses in presidential election certification and a declining international standing in semiconductor production. It also passed the strangely named Inflation Reduction Act. The bill allocated about $400 billion for clean energy, primarily through tax credits, and a smaller amount for lending programs, research, and more. Already reducing greenhouse gas emissions, the Inflation Reduction Act is projected to reduce these emissions by an additional 10% by 2030. This puts his 2030 projected emissions at 60% of his 2005 level. Significant work remains to be done, as under the Paris Agreement it will need to be 50% of 2005 levels by 2030.

The invasion of Ukraine quickly became something of a proxy war between Russia and the United States, Europe and many other countries. From a human perspective, the war is the deadliest that Europe has experienced in years, and actual casualties are likely higher than officially recorded. Mostly fighting actual battles, but a huge amount of financial, military and humanitarian aid has flowed in from the US and Europe – about $50 billion for us alone, with another $45 billion on the way. The war also wreaked havoc on global energy markets, particularly European countries that depended on Russian natural gas, and had a major impact on the global inflation problem.

Then there was China. The largest source of imported goods has become, more clearly than ever, our greatest strategic enemy. President Xi Jinping was elected to his five-year term for an unprecedented third term, quickly filling his seven-member core group of the Politburo, the Standing Committee, with supporters. I was. In both statements and policies, Xi continued to emphasize security and the military, partially reversing China’s move toward freer enterprise. This, along with the country’s inconsistent Covid policies, has caused a significant economic slowdown and stock prices to plummet. At the end of the year, Xi took a modest turn to reassure both the public and investors that his vision for China included a growing market economy.

Trump may have left the White House, but he hasn’t left the political arena. His popularity remained strong for most of the year, at least among Republicans. Polling data put him well ahead of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who is seen as a major rival. But after the disastrous midterm elections, the mood in his party appeared to change, as polls for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination found him trailing DeSantis by an average of just 22 points from his average. It dropped to 1.4 points. There were many other factors in Trump’s troubles. These include the storage of classified documents in Maralago, a dinner with white supremacists, a January 6 commission recommendation for criminal prosecution, and the release of tax returns. Oh, and of course, his ridiculous digital trading card pitch.