The news on the Bidenflation front continues to worsen. Not surprisingly, President Biden and his senior administration officials are in full spin mode.
On April 12th, the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) announced that the Consumer Price Index (CPI) rose 8.5% annually between March 2021 and March 2022 – the steepest increase since December 1981.
The index for all items less food and energy – what is known as the core index – rose a hefty 6.5 percent during this same period, the largest 12-month change since the period ending August 1982. The shelter index alone rose 5.0 percent over the last 12 months, which the BLS said was the largest 12-month increase since May 1991.
We only had to wait twenty-four hours for the other inflation shoe to fall. On April 13th, the BLS announced that the Producer Price Index (PPI), the measure of prices paid by wholesalers, rose a whopping 11.2% from March 2021 to March 2022. This was the biggest PPI increase on record.
These enormous price increases are further eroding any advances in real wages since President Biden took office. Workers are behind the eight ball thanks to President Biden’s reckless spending and energy policies. Adjusting for inflation, average real pay was down in March. The 5.6 nominal increase in hourly wages, as calculated without taking account of the increase in the cost of living, means little to workers trying to make ends meet.
During a speech that President Biden delivered in Iowa on April 12th, the president boasted “We’re back.”
Yes, we are back – back to the disastrous hyperinflation days of the Jimmy Carter presidency.
The annual core inflation rate in the Euro Area increased 3% in March of 2022 – less than half of the annual increase in the United States. Europeans are hurting to be sure, but not as much as the American people are hurting on President Biden’s watch.
President Biden’s dismal performance on the economy is taking its toll on him politically. His overall approval rating has slipped further to 38 percent, according to CNBC’s All-America Survey. Biden’s approval rating on the economy dropped to a dismal 35 percent. The cost of living is the top priority issue for 48 percent of those surveyed.
Clearly, the American people are not buying President Biden’s lame excuses for the consequences of his own disastrous economic policies.