If you keep hearing that the economy is doing well but you’re still not feeling it, you’re not alone. Millions of Americans are struggling to feel “Bidenomics,” but that hasn’t stopped the media from deliberately misleading the public on what the facts are.
CNN tells us that “Americans have never been wealthier,” and MSNBC’s nutjob-in-chief Mehdi Hasan claimed in August the “economy is surging under ‘Bidenomics'” and that “the Republican description of our economy is not just wrong, it’s a lie.”
“The economy is in way better shape than just about anyone predicted a year or two ago – and it’s rivaling economies under previous presidents,” Hasan claimed.
But citing the unemployment rate and a lower inflation rate to gaslight Americans into believing the economy is working while ignoring all other indicators that the economy is souring is, quite frankly, insulting.
Of course the Biden administration and pundits continually claim that inflation is going down – which is true. But where is it coming down from? It is slowly decreasing from a decades-long high of 9.1% in June of 2022. But it’s not lower than what it was when Biden took office. Americans knew what a low-inflation economy felt like under Trump, with the former president leaving the economy with a 1.4% inflation rate.
To make matters worse, the Federal Reserve has hiked interest rates at a historic pace to offset the devastating inflation, which has contributed to three bank closures. Those required the government to intervene to avoid a financial catastrophe, and nothing screams “Build Back Better” like using taxpayer money to subsidize banks.
So while inflation is going down, it’s still higher than what it was when Trump left. Of course, no one could’ve predicted inflation decreasing two years ago because they probably didn’t expect its meteoric rise either.
WASHINGTON, DC – SEPTEMBER 15: Republican presidential candidate, former President Donald Trump speaks at the Pray Vote Stand Summit at the Omni Shoreham Hotel on September 15, 2023 in Washington, DC. The summit featured multiple 2024 Republican Presidential candidates making their case to the conservative audience members. (Photo by Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)
But the effects of inflation don’t stop there. As Biden touts wage growth, he conveniently leaves out that while wages and salaries were up 0.2% for the month of August and 4.3% from a year ago, inflation increased 3.7% on an annual basis in August. Meanwhile the rate of inflation for necessities like food, rent and utilities went up 4.3% year-over-year in August.
So any increase in your wage likely isn’t being felt. (RELATED: In Trump’s Economy, Working Class Employees Are Getting Bigger Raises Than Their Bosses)
Then there’s the claim that Biden has overseen unprecedented job growth.
But most of the jobs “created” were just jobs that returned after the government put an artificial clampdown on the economy during the pandemic. In fact, the jobs that returned were actually created by Trump. Approximately 72% of all job gains since 2021 were jobs recovered from the pandemic, meaning that if you compare pre-pandemic job levels to current levels, employment is up by less than 4 million, according to the House Budget Committee. Job growth has also not reached pre-pandemic pace.
But job growth doesn’t paint the entire (bleak) picture either.
Labor force participation is a key indicator as to how strong the economy is. Under Biden, the labor force participation rate is 62.8%, 0.03 points lower than August of 2019, months before the pandemic hit. That means that more Americans have left the workforce entirely.
And if you thought it couldn’t get worse – you’re wrong.
The U.S Census data that was just released shows incomes have fallen every single year since Biden took office, with the median income falling to $74,580 in 2022. That level of decline has not been seen since 2008, according to the House Budget Committee.
Meanwhile the poverty rate rose to 12.4% in 2022, up from the 7.8% in 2021. The increase in the poverty rate is the first since 2010, which is when Biden was also conveniently in office as vice president.
Maybe – just maybe – Americans have been looking at the real data and feeling the real effects of Bidenomics when they keep telling the Biden administration things don’t feel good.
But the truth always falls on deaf ears.