Commentary
The Biden pay cut just got more severe as surging inflation reduces Americans’ real wages and living standards. On Wednesday, the Labor Department announced that the consumer price index increased by 6.2 percent over the last year, the fastest pace in over 30 years. October marks the sixth consecutive month that inflation has grown by 5 percent or more on a year-over-year basis—significantly outpacing wage growth and putting Americans further and further behind. Bidenflation is the next pandemic.
The topline CPI number obscures even higher inflation among commodities like food and energy that Americans actually consume. When you strip out deflationary tech products from the index, price increases are even more substantial. The price of gas is up 50 percent over the last year, and the cost of fuel oil to heat homes has risen nearly 60 percent. The price of beef is up 20 percent and pork 14 percent.
Americans are staring down their most expensive Thanksgiving dinner in history, a bitter pill to swallow considering many families skipped Thanksgiving get-togethers last year due to the pandemic.
And there’s additional bad news. On Tuesday, the Labor Department announced that the producer price index, which reflects what businesses pay, accelerated at 8.6 percent. This runaway inflation hits small businesses especially hard. They generally have smaller margins and economies of scale than their big business competitors, who often enjoy pricing power over their suppliers to mitigate inflation’s impacts.
Unsurprisingly, Job Creators Network’s October Monthly Monitor Poll finds that small business sentiment declined for a third consecutive month, with inflation cited as by far the biggest concern among surveyed small business owners.
“It’s a never-ending loop — by the time you’ve implemented one price increase, you’re already ready to implement a new one,” small business pricing consultant Tom McTaggart explained to the Wall Street Journal. “It’s like trying to hit a moving target while you’re standing on a moving platform.”
This painful inflation is largely a result of President Biden and congressional Democrats’ trillions of dollars in reckless spending that devalues the currency. Earlier this month, Congress passed a $1.2 trillion infrastructure-in-name-only bill that will worsen inflation by showering money on political and environmental priorities. According to the Committee to Unleash Prosperity, only about one in four of the legislation’s dollars are for roads, bridges, highways, and airports. Much of the rest goes to big green boondoggles.
And now Biden and congressional Democrats want to spend another $4 trillion on their Build Back Broke plan that threatens to turn this historically high inflation hyper. This spending blowout would further devalue the currency, and its tax increases and social programs would exacerbate the ongoing supply-chain and labor shortages contributing to rising prices. For instance, the bill would standardize monthly payments to families—implementing a de facto universal basic income that keeps people on the labor market sidelines. The latest inflation numbers should be the final nail in the BBB’s coffin.
Incredibly, Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, who has presided over the inflationary supply-chain mess, claimed on MSNBC last week that the BBB will address these problems by creating universal child care. He had no answer for the host who pointed out that the booming labor market a couple of years ago didn’t suffer from a lack of government-supported childcare. He insults Americans’ intelligence by chalking the current problems all up to COVID and a lack of “free” childcare.
Meanwhile, the Biden administration finalized an illegal employer vaccine mandate earlier this month that will worsen the inflationary labor shortage by pushing many non-vaccinated Americans out of work. (Job Creators Network has filed a lawsuit to block this anti-small business executive overreach from taking effect.)
I’ve been warning about the inflationary effects of a Biden presidency since the beginning of his term, and I’m sad to see my predictions are so accurate. Ordinary Americans and small businesses are suffering enormously due to these spiraling prices, reversing the vaccine-induced economic recovery. And the plans of the administration and congressional Democrats would only make matters worse. The pandemic is waning, but the Biden epidemic is worryingly still in its first quarter.
From RealClearWire
Views expressed in this article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.
