"Generally, people are pretty short-sighted. We tend to think the future is going to be similar to the present," he said. In other words, a recent past that includes blistering inflation, pain at the pump and higher borrowing costs can put a damper on enthusiasm, even if that pain turns out to be short-lived.

Part of the problem with generalizations is that, with a roughly $25 trillion gross domestic product and 330 million people, give or take, the "American economy" isn't a monolith. And at a time of sharp political and cultural polarization, it is perhaps fitting that economic data seems to reflect both the best of times and the worst of times.

"I think people's perceptions are clearly colored by the prism they're looking through," Zandi said. "The political environment is badly polarized, and that's reflected in how people think about things."

While this means that grad students in economics will likely be arguing about this period of time for decades to come, experts say there are real-world consequences to using politics as a lens for financial decision-making.

"Generally, people are pretty short-sighted. We tend to think the future is going to be similar to the present," he said. In other words, a recent past that includes blistering inflation, pain at the pump and higher borrowing costs can put a damper on enthusiasm, even if that pain turns out to be short-lived.

Part of the problem with generalizations is that, with a roughly $25 trillion gross domestic product and 330 million people, give or take, the "American economy" isn't a monolith. And at a time of sharp political and cultural polarization, it is perhaps fitting that economic data seems to reflect both the best of times and the worst of times.

"I think people's perceptions are clearly colored by the prism they're looking through," Zandi said. "The political environment is badly polarized, and that's reflected in how people think about things."

While this means that grad students in economics will likely be arguing about this period of time for decades to come, experts say there are real-world consequences to using politics as a lens for financial decision-making.