American Workers Lost a Jaw-Dropping Amount From Inflation in Past Year: Researcher

A shopper places produce in a bag at Victoria Market in Melbourne, Australia, on July 5, 2022. William West/AFP via Getty Images

American workers lost an average of $3,400 in yearly income as a result of high inflation in the past 18 months, according to a research fellow.

A report released by the Bureau of Labor Statistics found that the Consumer Price Index spiked 9.1 percent year-over-year last month, which is the highest level since 1981.

E.J. Antoni, a research fellow at the Heritage Foundation, said that with the current level of inflation, American workers saw a $3,400 yearly income decrease on average, while there was a $6,800 decline for families in which both parents work

“There are plenty of families that that’s more than their food budget a year,” Antoni told Fox News on Wednesday. “I can’t emphasize enough how much this is really crushing consumers.”

Inflation is “truly crushing the middle class and then the White House spokesperson says these garbage lines like ‘the economy is in transition,’” he added. “Transition in the same sense, I suppose, that an iceberg transitioned the Titanic into a submarine.”

Republicans and some economists have pinned the decades-high inflation on Biden’s policies. And on Wednesday, they again targeted the president.

“One year ago this week President Biden’s reckless stimulus checks began flooding the economy, and we are seeing the result: Inflation is raging and getting worse, forcing massive paycuts for American families,” House Ways and Means Committee Ranking Member Kevin Brady (R-Texas) said in a statement Wednesday.

He was referring to the American Rescue Plan that was signed into law by Biden last year, which provided stimulus checks worth up to $1,400. Stimulus checks were also doled out in 2020 following the emergence of COVID-19. Both provisions were heavily supported by Democrat lawmakers.

Biden’s Response

In response to the recent inflation report, President Joe Biden told reporters in Israel that “while today’s headline inflation reading is unacceptably high, it is also out-of-date.” The president said that gas prices, for example, have fallen in recent weeks from $5 per gallon on average, although they’re still well above $4.50 per gallon, according to AAA data.

The “savings are providing important breathing room for American families,” Biden claimed, without providing data. “And, other commodities like wheat have fallen sharply since this report,” he added.

US President Joe Biden (L) is welcomed by Israeli caretaker Prime Minister Yair Lapid after arriving at Israel's Ben Gurion Airport in Lod near Tel Aviv, on July 13, 2022. Jack Guez/AFP via Getty Images

A top White House adviser, National Economic Council Director Brian Deese, told CNBC that he believes more government spending is needed for semiconductors after the inflation report was released.

“I just want to underscore if there’s one thing to take away from this report it’s that there is more urgency now than ever in Congress moving to pass a bill to try to build more domestic semiconductors, to try to bring down the price of those goods,” Deese said.

The report, he added, is “backward-looking” because it does not “reflect what we’ve seen over the last 30 days, which is a significant decline in gas prices, down about 40 cents.”

Wednesday’s report also showed that core inflation, which tracks the change in consumer prices across sectors other than food and energy, increased by 5.9 percent.

“What we are seeing now is those [food and energy] costs are finally being passed on to other businesses and then, ultimately, to consumers,” Antoni, the Heritage research fellow, told Fox on Wednesday. “That’s why they’re being borne out in the core prices.”

The Epoch Times has contacted the White House for comment.