Since President Biden took office in January 2021, inflation has increased 19.3% while wages have risen 16.1%. This effectively means that under Bidenomics, American families have suffered a 3% pay cut.
Politifact shows this gap graphically:
In last week’s CNN presidential debate, moderator Jake Tapper pointed out to Biden, “Since you took office, the price of essentials has increased. For example, a basket of groceries that cost $100 then, now costs more than $12; and typical home prices have jumped more than 30 percent.”
Unfortunately, as the Committee to Unleash Prosperity notes, Biden made some false economic claims in the debate.
Biden falsely claimed that America’s unemployment rate was 15% when he took office. But in December 2020, the rate was 6.7%, and in January 2021, the rate was 6.4%.
Biden claimed “the economy was flat on its back” when he took office, yet in the fourth quarter of 2020, GDP grew at 4.1%, and in the first quarter of 2021—nearly a full quarter before the inflationary $1.9 trillion “American Rescue Plan Act” passed in March 2021—it grew at 5.1%. President Trump clearly presided over momentum for our economy as he left the Oval Office.
While our current president and his progressive pals try to spin the Biden White House economic policy as a roaring success, the truth is more nuanced. They try to paint President Biden as an economic hero, but the University of Michigan’s gold standard tracking of Consumer Sentiment shows we are still far below pre-pandemic levels.
A big reason why consumer sentiment hasn’t recovered no doubt stems from high numbers of Americans who say high prices are contributing to their poor personal finances.
Americans deserve an economic, business, and regulatory policy that works for us, not against us.