Many attribute the saying “a rising tide lifts all boats” to President John Kennedy. He may have been the man who brought it into the mainstream but as his former speechwriter, Ted Sorenson long ago admitted, it didn’t originate from his or the President’s imagination. Instead, according to Sorenson, it was a phrase borrowed from the New England Chamber of Commerce or some such.

Before implying the benefits of broad economic growth, as Kennedy would use it, the cliché was almost common in use among Northeastern spiritualists. Its practice has perhaps stuck in the common American lexicon because of the simplicity of its implications. Good things in society generally benefit everyone if left alone long enough.

It’s not always so easy to see. In any economy, there will always be variability. Even under the most robust, gangbuster condition, there will be those who aren’t keeping up. That proportion left out will inevitably be better off, but that’s not the comparison most people make on an intuitive level.

Nor should it be the full measure of legitimate economic growth. If the economy is the rising tide, how far it rises matters given how many boats are lifted in its ebbs and flows. In other words, if there are too many people outside the class doing well then its not growth at all. Defining “too many” isn’t an exact science, but the rise of populism and general distrust of institutions suggests there is something going on here.

In general, that’s why we have economic statistics to try and measure when this happens. In the past, these were uncontroversial. There was still poor and unemployed Americans during the late nineties, but there weren’t very many at least when compared to other points in economic history. The unemployment rate, as one major statistic, seemed quite able to capture common perception.

This stands in stark contrast to the last decade. The unemployment rate falls and then falls again. Many have claimed based on this one number alone that the tide must be absolutely swimming on in, a boom we haven’t seen in a very long time.