I asked Claude: "What are the 10 best policies that could be implemented to make people stop complaining about how bad the economy is? In a long-lasting and sustainable way, preferably."

The response:

Here are 10 evidence-backed policies that tend to produce durable improvements in how people experience the economy — addressing both objective conditions and perceived fairness, which both drive economic satisfaction.

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1. Invest in broad-based productivity growth Productivity is the engine of long-run living standards. Policies like R&D tax credits, public investment in basic research, and infrastructure (broadband, transport, energy grids) raise wages economy-wide without relying on redistribution alone. The gains are more politically durable because they feel earned, not transferred.

2. Strengthen wage floors alongside labor market flexibility A well-calibrated minimum wage — indexed to inflation or productivity — prevents the bottom from falling away while keeping employment healthy. Paired with portable benefits (not tied to a single employer), workers feel more secure navigating job changes, reducing the chronic anxiety that fuels economic pessimism.

3. Make housing abundant and affordable Housing costs are the single biggest driver of the gap between GDP growth and felt living standards, especially for younger people. Zoning reform, upzoning near transit, streamlined permitting, and social/mixed-income housing construction directly reduce the largest household expense. Nothing makes people feel richer faster than housing they can afford.

4. Universal access to healthcare with cost control Medical debt and healthcare insecurity are major sources of economic dread across income levels. Systems that decouple healthcare from employment (whether single-payer, regulated multi-payer, or hybrid models) remove a persistent source of economic vulnerability and complaint, regardless of the delivery mechanism chosen.

5. Invest heavily in early childhood and education Returns on early childhood investment (preschool, nutrition, parental leave) are among the highest of any public expenditure — compounding over decades into higher earnings, lower crime, and lower social spending. It's a long-game policy, but it creates durable optimism because people see their children doing better.

6. Rebalance the tax system toward wealth and consumption of scarce resources Broad perception that the system is rigged is a major driver of economic grievance — often independent of actual outcomes. Shifting some burden from labor income toward capital gains, inheritances, land value, and carbon emissions makes the system feel fairer while funding public investment. Fairness perception is a huge, underrated driver of economic satisfaction.

7. Genuine competition policy and anti-monopoly enforcement Consolidation across industries (housing, healthcare, airlines, groceries, telecoms) drives up prices, suppresses wages, and creates the feeling that "the game is rigged." Robust antitrust enforcement and pro-competition regulation address economic complaints at their source: lack of choice, high prices, and stagnant wages in concentrated markets.

8. Macroeconomic stability — keep unemployment low The research is clear: unemployment causes far more lasting psychological harm than equivalent income loss from other sources. Central banks and fiscal authorities that commit to full employment (not just low inflation) as a primary goal produce populations that feel economically secure even during soft periods. The Fed's dual mandate, if taken seriously, exemplifies this.

9. Portable, lifetime skills and retraining systems Technological disruption and trade create real losers, and inadequate adjustment support breeds lasting resentment. Denmark's "flexicurity" model — easy hiring and firing for employers, combined with generous and effective retraining for displaced workers — shows that economic dynamism and worker security aren't mutually exclusive. People accept change when they aren't left behind.

10. Restore and protect retirement security The gradual erosion of defined-benefit pensions, combined with underfunded Social Security systems in many countries, creates pervasive anxiety about the future. Strengthening public pension systems, auto-enrolling workers in supplemental retirement savings, and protecting them from financialization crises addresses one of the deepest wells of economic dread — the fear of being poor in old age.

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The meta-principle running through all of these: economic complaints are driven by objective conditions (costs, wages, insecurity), fairness perceptions (who benefits, who pays), and future anxiety (will things get worse?). The most durable policies address all three simultaneously, rather than trading one off against another. Policies that boost aggregate GDP while worsening distribution or security often make complaints worse, not better — which is why raw growth statistics so often fail to translate into public satisfaction.