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Fortune
Fortune
Kari Butcher

Americans say the economy is bad but keep spending. Don’t mistake the midterm polls for a forecast

midterms (Credit: Graeme Sloan/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

Consumer confidence is at its lowest level since 2014, yet spending rose in August. Kari Butcher, Burson’s Chair for Intelligence & Insights for the Americas, argues that business leaders make the same mistake with election polls: treating what people say as a prediction of what they will do.

Business leaders are making consequential decisions based on a category error: treating what people say in a poll as a reliable forecast of what they will do next.

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