While President Joe Biden this week heralded a slightly lower than expected October inflation rate, he neglected to mention that inflation last month outpaced wage increases, meaning that Americans are effectively making less money than when Biden entered office.
Wages have only increased by 5.1 percent in the last 12 months, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The inflation rate, by contrast, has been over 5.3 percent for over a year. Americans thus have less real disposable income than when Biden took office in January 2021, according to a St. Louis Federal Reserve Bank analysis.
The president did not mention those findings in a Thursday statement, instead saying that a 0.3 percent inflation rise in October, a lower rate than economists expected, is "further evidence that my economic plan is working." Biden also overlooked news that the personal savings rate dropped in October, showing how "inflation and higher borrowing costs are thinning out financial cushions," Bloomberg reported.
Biden has been desperate since last year for good economic news, a likely reason that the Democratic Party named its most recent spending bill the "Inflation Reduction Act," which leading economists say will have no meaningful impact on inflation. Other Biden moves, such as his American Rescue Plan and student debt cancellation scheme, will likely fuel inflation.