The President and his economic team met with reporters late last week to tout good economic growth and a shrinking deficit. But the University of Michigan’s latest survey shows consumer confidence dropping like a stone. The Administration is puzzled, and worried about the implications for the fall elections. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson calls the disconnect between the upbeat economic news and the public’s downbeat attitude "the sixty-four thousand dollar question."

Paulson shows his age by referring to the title of an old TV quiz show that most Americans don’t remember. In it, contestants worked their way up to a big stumper of a question which, if they answered correctly, paid them sixty-four thousand dollars. But how can the Administration really be stumped by the public’s downbeat assessment of this economy? I mean, the housing sector is weakening, and homes had been piggy banks for extra cash as well as baby boomer retirement nest eggs. Meanwhile, the price of gas continues to hover around three dollars a gallon. No question about any of this.

But maybe Hank Paulson had something more subtle in mind when he spoke of a $64,000 question. Maybe, just maybe, he was taking note of the fact that median annual household incomes have dropped, in real terms, from about $46,000 in the year 2000 to $45,000 today. Yet if American households had been sharing in the growing economy the Administration is so eager to tout, median household income today would be on the way to $64,000. Rarely before in history has the American economy grown so nicely without most Americans sharing in the growth. Corporate profits are fatter than they've been in years. What corporations aren't using for investment they're awarding to their top executives or distributing to their shareholders. The top one percent of income earners, gleaning over $750,000 this year, are doing wonderfully well and are quite happy about the economy. The typical family -- with stagnant income, a house that's no longer a piggy bank, and higher fuel bills -- is not. Hence the real disconnect.

Supply-side economics, meaning big tax cuts for the very wealthy, used to be called trickle-down economics on the assumption that some of the gains would be felt by average people. But in this economy nothing has been trickling down. The real sixty-four thousand dollar question is why the White House is puzzled that most Americans are so downbeat.