Clarity? In this economy?

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Jim LaPointe knows that how the economy feels “depends on your perspective.”

Four years after Covid-19 lockdowns kicked off a home fix-up frenzy, the central New Jersey contractor’s business remains through the roof. While Home Depot said earlier this month that customers are increasingly holding off on big projects, LaPointe is seeing the opposite. He’s been turning some clients away to avoid being “booked up a year in advance.”

“They’re going nuts with this,” he said of homeowners’ appetite for renovations.

It wasn’t long ago when a stock market smashing records and unemployment at decadeslong lows were huge advantages for an incumbent president. But today, with voters heading to the polls in little more than five months, it’s less clear what role the economy will play in an electorate that’s also fractured by immigration and abortion rights.

An NBC News poll last month found cost-of-living concerns remain top of mind for voters. While presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump is seen — by a 52% to 30% margin — as better positioned to tackle inflation than his Democratic rival, President Joe Biden, 1 in 4 voters have yet to make up their minds about the race.

“We’re getting close to the period, usually in the summer, when public attitudes on the economy traditionally harden,” said Greg Valliere, chief U.S. policy strategist at AGF Investments, who so far sees Biden as “the clear underdog.”

The Biden campaign, which rejects that view, has been ramping up its economic messaging all year. It notes that the country dodged a much-forecast 2023 recession and weathered the Federal Reserve’s 11 interest rate hikes while continuing to add more jobs and small businesses.

The robust labor market and a Covid savings cushion mean many consumers continue to spend heavily, even those who face a budget squeeze elsewhere. That financial push-and-pull is still clouding — and in some cases distorting — many households’ view of an otherwise sunny economy, while leaving others more hopeful.

‘I can’t run on the hamster wheel fast enough’

Meg Thomann, a communications director for a pharmaceutical company, is one of Jim LaPointe’s customers. She and her husband, an architect, are renovating the historic home they share with their three kids. While they have the disposable income to do so, Thomann said it still “feels like I can’t run on the hamster wheel fast enough.”

In the middle of fixing her roof and preparing

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