The UK has voted to leave the EU. We asked British voters whether they felt like politicians and the media had done a good job at communicating the effect of the EU on the UK economy. No matter which way they voted, their answer was a resounding 'no'.
With people calling this one of the most important political decisions that the UK has made in decades, we don't think this is acceptable. Politicians and the media have a responsibility to make themselves understood when it comes to economics.
And then, of course, there's the economists themselves. Paul Johnson, Director of the Institute for Fiscal Studies (the UK's leading independent research institute on the economy) couldn't have put it more clearly in his recent opinion piece in The Times:
"We need to understand the abject failure of our profession... Who cares about 'the economy', 'growth', 'trade', if we can’t translate them directly into 'incomes', 'jobs', 'living standards'. We must start speaking more plainly. And we must also link these things to real people, to the poor, to those in the middle, to parents, to families, to workers and to pensioners."
We couldn't agree more.
Here's a teaser version of what the people we spoke to had to say...
And here's the full video...
See here for our press release on this story and our recent poll that only 12% of the UK public feel politicians talk about economics in an accessible way. Contact chuck.baker@ecnmy.org for further details.
