The radical disconnect between Washington’s ruling elites and working-class folks is perhaps best illustrated by President Joe Biden touting his economic record. For most Americans, Bidenomics has been a disaster marked by a cost-of-living crisis. Its true “success” has been in transferring wealth from the average American to Biden’s donor class.
There’s no denying that many Americans’ wages have risen at a brisk pace the last two years, but prices have risen even faster, an astonishing 16%. Forty-year-high inflation has eaten away the real value of incomes and savings — a direct result of the government spending, borrowing and creating too much money out of thin air.
This robbing of purchasing power tends to fall heaviest on low-income earners because their wages and salaries usually adjust to inflation slower than those of high-income earners. Sure enough, since Biden took office, real (meaning inflation-adjusted) incomes for the lowest income quartile and second-lowest income quartiles have fallen 2.5% and 3.0%, respectively.
This totally disproves Biden’s claim that real earnings have risen for the bottom half of Americans. Conversely, those in the highest income decile have seen their real incomes rise about one-third of a percent under Biden, meaning the wages and salaries of the top 10% have slightly outpaced inflation.
And not only are incomes rising slower for working-class folks. Their prices are rising faster too.