President Biden has of late attempted to convince Americans to ignore the financial realities of their day-to-day lives by insisting that his stewardship of the economy has been a success. Inevitably, the corporate media have been all too willing to repeat this rubbish despite mountains of data that clearly debunk the President’s claims. Fortunately, the voters are not as dumb as Biden and the Fourth Estate evidently believe. According to virtually every poll, significant majorities disapprove of the way he has handled the economy. Moreover, because the voters experience the ugly facts in real time every day, it is unlikely that a public relations campaign will change their opinion.
Yet Biden continues to make preposterous claims about the economy. On July 16, for example, he tweeted: “Right now, real wages for the average American worker is higher than it was before the pandemic, with lower wage workers seeing the largest gains.” This nonsense was debunked in a community note: “On 3/15/20 when US COVID lockdowns began real wages adjusted for inflation (AFI) were $11.15. As of 7/16/23 real wages AFI are $11.05.” Biden’s record looks even worse when the real wage rate he inherited is compared to the current rate. The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) indicates that real average hourly earnings in February of 2021 were $11.40. The latest BLS report shows a 3 percent decline to $11.05.
This decrease in real wages is a direct result of inflation, which is still driving up prices faster than salaries are rising. When he launched the “Bidenomics” PR campaign, our President boasted, “Today, inflation is less than half—less than half of what it was a year ago.” He neglected to mention that last July’s 8.5 percent inflation rate was caused by his administration’s irresponsible spending. Biden inherited a 1.4 percent inflation rate and a recovering economy, yet insisted on pushing through the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan, against the advice of economists of all political stripes. Former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers, for example, warned in the Washington Post that it would be inflationary.
[T]here is a chance that macroeconomic stimulus on a scale closer to World War II levels than normal recession levels will set off inflationary pressures of a kind we have not seen in a generation, with consequences for the value of the dollar and financial stability. This will be manageable if monetary and fiscal policy can be rapidly adjusted to address the problem. But given the commitments the Fed has made, administration officials’ dismissal of even the possibility of inflation, and the difficulties in mobilizing congressional support for tax increases or spending cuts, there is the risk of inflation expectations rising sharply.
Summers was right, of course. And, though few voters could have predicted the inflation spike with such precision, they know Biden’s policies created the problem. Moreover, they also know that Biden has consistently lied about the effect of his economic ineptitude. They remember when he said inflation was just temporary, and his Chief of Staff shared a tweet saying it was merely a high-class problem. Next, he blamed it on meat and poultry producers. Then it was Russia’s fault. Who can forget Putin’s price hike? Inevitably, he blamed oil companies and even threatened gas station owners. Eventually, Biden fell back on an old strategy used by his former boss—insisting that he had inherited inflation from his predecessor.
And, though few voters could have predicted the inflation spike with such precision, they know Biden’s policies created the problem.
Now, as CNBC recently reported, the voters are increasingly worried that the Federal Reserve’s strategy to control inflation by raising interest rates may well result in a recession that rivals the “great recession” of 2008. And these concerns are by no means irrational. The Wall Street Journal points out a potential harbinger of recession that is rarely discussed outside of the academy: “While some economists are optimistic as hiring booms, employees are actually working fewer hours. Usually, reducing working hours has been a reliable sign of incoming layoffs – and a possible recession.” Meanwhile, the legacy media struggles to understand public skepticism about the efficacy of Bidenomics. The Week is typical:
[E]ven as the U.S. emerges from the iron grip of inflation, President Biden and his signature “Bidenomics” approach are getting little credit. Perhaps unfairly, shouldering the blame for an underperforming economy is a typical pitfall of the presidency — yet so is owning the political boon that comes with a healthy one. And Biden, for all his attempts, is struggling to convince the public that he deserves some kudos on that front; As of July 13, just 38.7% of Americans approved of the way he was handling the economy, according to a polling average from RealClearPolitics. Why are voters so reluctant to give the president his flowers?
The answer to this is obvious to anyone willing to stop slurping the Biden administration’s Kool-Aid. The rate of inflation has gradually decreased since last summer’s 40-year high, but prices nonetheless continue to go up every month. The cumulative increase since Biden was inaugurated has now exceeded 16 percent as David Winston writes in Roll Call: “Of the previous seven presidents, only Carter had a worse number.” TIPP Insights succinctly explains how that has impacted real people living in the real world: “You need $1,000 in earnings today to buy what $862 could buy when Biden took office. Alternatively, if you needed $50K yearly for household expenses before Biden took office, you now need $58K.”(RELATED: President Joe Hoover)
No amount of happy talk from the President or cheerleading from a complicit corporate media will erase this grotesque reality. Americans are living with it day in and day out. This is why Biden’s approval rating is so low with regard to his stewardship of the economy. It is one of the most important reasons two-thirds of Americans say the country is heading in the wrong direction. When Bill Clinton ran for President during a very sluggish 1992 economy, he famously told a participant in a town hall, “I feel your pain.” That claim was debatable. As for President Biden, there is very little debate that he is the cause of the pain. (RELATED: VIDEO: Joe Biden Touts ‘Bidenomics,’ Ignores Inflation)
