-
Jason Furman is among the economists who aren’t buying the Biden administration’s inflation argument.
-
Biden has asserted that big companies have been making inflation worse by excessively raising prices.
-
Republicans are hitting Biden for rising inflation, posing a fresh political problem for Biden.
President Joe Biden has grappled for months with soaring inflation under his watch. And as 2022 kicks off, it hasn’t fallen as quickly as the administration hoped.
White House officials long contended that the spike in consumer prices would be short-lived as the economy rebounded last year, but it hasn’t played out like that. A federal report issued Wednesday showed prices rose a still-elevated 7% in December compared to a year ago, the fastest pace in nearly four decades.
Supply chains are still broken with consumer demand surging for all types of goods like used cars and groceries. The Biden administration is pinning the blame for rising prices on corporations like meat processors for profiting off the pandemic.
But many economists, including one that served in the Obama administration, aren’t buying it.