Inflation, interest rates and immigration – the three I’s – have created a toxic economic mix for the bottom 50% of American wage earners during President Joe Biden’s first three years in office. The State of the Union address shows that Biden still does not understand why lower income citizens have had it with being force-fed his foul concoction.
His three I’s policies have created a Reverse Robin Hood Effect, robbing from the neediest and giving it to the richest. Indeed, in former President Donald Trump’s first three years, the top 1%’s share of financial assets was virtually unchanged, rising just 0.6%. In the same amount of time under Biden, it has increased 4.9%. The opposite has been true for the bottom half of the income distribution. Their share of financial assets has been flat under Biden but rose 13% under Trump.
While inflation adjusted average hourly earnings rose 2.4% during Trump’s first three years in office, they have declined 2.2% under Joe Biden. In short, work has been devalued in Joe Biden’s economy, and American families are not keeping up with food and housing.
Biden tried to give the American public a scapegoat for his resounding economic failures, blaming the rich and singling out billionaires and earners over $1 million as targets for higher taxes. In doing so, he seemed to be channeling gangster Willie Sutton’s mantra of robbing banks, “because that’s where the money is.”
Despite Biden’s rather high decibel economic sophistry, the American public understands what ails them. In a CBS poll conducted last month, 57% of voters rate the condition of the economy as “fairly bad” or “very bad,” and 77% of voters say that their own financial situation has stayed the same or gotten worse under Biden.
Moreover, in a recent NYTimes/Siena poll, 43% of voters said that Biden’s policies have hurt them personally, with only 18% answering that his policies have helped. In contrast, 40% of voters judged that Trump’s policies had benefited them personally, with only 25% saying that they had hurt.