CNN’s Erica Hill was stunned Friday after data reporter Harry Enten laid out “depressing” economic numbers that spell bad news for the Biden administration.
Enten explained that the decline in disposable income largely explains Americans’ bleak view of the economy, despite other economic metrics tending in positive directions.
“From the first year of a president’s term to now in a term, look at this. We’ve actually had negative growth. We have actually decreased the amount of disposable income we’ve had, 2.7% for the Biden administration. Look at that. The average for the president since JFK, is plus 4.5 percent,” he said. “And even in the last few months, the last six months, the growth that we’ve had — just 0.2 percent. The average six months since 1960 [is] 1.1 percent, so we’re even behind on that metric.”
“That’s kind of depressing,” Hill said. (RELATED: CNN Host Says Biden Should Stop Telling People Economy Is Strong)
“It is kind of depressing,” Enten agreed. “And the one last thing I’ll note — even wages here [are] not going up. Median wage: minus one [percent] since pre-pandemic, minus one [percent] since Biden’s first year. Since last quarter? Zero percent. Wages have been stagnant for a long time and it’s continuing to be so.”
Inflation has ticked down from its high of more than nine percent in 2022 but remains higher than Fed’s target rate of two percent. Prices for rent, groceries and transportation remain high, and total prices are up 17.2 percent since Biden took office in Jan. 2021, data from the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis shows.