President Joe Biden claimed victory on Tuesday when the government reported that the inflation rate was just 4% for the year that ended in May.
Biden called the Bureau of Labor Statistics report “good news for hard-working families.”
As with most things Biden, his comments mask a reality that continues to smack those families in the face.
For one thing, while inflation in May was the lowest in more than two years, the 4% rate is still nearly triple what it was when Biden took office.
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In comparison, the highest inflation rate under former President Donald Trump was 2.9% in June and July 2018.
While last month’s rate is the third-lowest monthly rate of Biden’s term, one has to go back to September 2008 — a year into the Great Recession — to find the last time pre-Biden inflation was as high as the rate announced Tuesday.
But the real damage is in the wages of those “hard-working families.”
Wall Street Journal columnist William Galston noted on Tuesday that a recent Economist/YouGov poll found that 85% of respondents said they were no better off or worse off than a year ago, even as inflation has been cut in half.
The reason: inflation hit them in the wallet.
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The Media Research Center noted findings from another BLS report released Tuesday.
“Compared to the same month year-earlier, the change in real average earnings has now been negative for more than two years,” the MRC noted.
Americans’ average earnings have shrunk for 26 consecutive months.
Why? Bidenflation.
Although workers made slightly more, they worked fewer hours on average, the BLS noted.
The good news for Biden is that the 0.7% decline in real weekly earnings was the smallest decline since September 2021.
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