Stop telling me the US economy is fine, leftist media. I can read my own bills
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All over the nation’s media you’ll see it. The economy is fine. Inflation is down, unemployment is down. Joe Biden has done a stellar job. The trouble is, for a lot of Americans, this just doesn’t match what’s happening in our lives.
For instance: adding a 16-year-old to one’s auto insurance policy is often nearly as painful as a costly divorce, but in these inflationary times, it might just be worse. Last week, our insurance company, USAA, which is regarded as an affordable carrier and is only available to veterans and their families, informed us that our policy would rise to $7,498 (£5,882) per year if we add my teenage son to our policy. Inflation stood at 3.2 per cent in February, according to data released this week. For most Americans, it feels much higher. And yet, Joe Biden had the chutzpah to promote his abysmal record in New Hampshire this week under a huge banner with the words, “Lowering Costs for American Families”. In the immortal words of John McEnroe, you cannot be serious, Joe.
Auto insurance has risen 20.6 per cent in the last year, the sharpest spike since 1976, when Jimmy Carter, another Democratic President who was undone by inflation, was elected. My homeowner’s insurance has risen from $3,300 (£2,588) to $5,900 (£4,627) in the last year. We’re searching for new insurance policies, but the pickings are slim, particularly in Florida where insurance scams and hazardous weather events are as unremarkable as a cloudy day in Glasgow.
Insurance prices are a component of how the inflation rate is calculated but there’s huge regional variation and you’d have to be a NASA scientist to understand the Bureau of Labor Statistics weighting system. Luckily, I purchased the home I now live in in 2019, with a 3.5 per cent interest rate. Seven per cent is typical now, and, according to the realty site Zillow, the income level needed to comfortably afford a home in the US has increased 80 per cent, from $59,000 to $106,500, since January 2020.
Mr. Biden touted falling health care costs in New Hampshire, and indeed inflation figures suggest that health insurance has dropped by nearly 20 per cent in the last year. But it seems that much of this saving is confined to the 21 million Americans who have insurance through the Affordable Care Act, better known as Obamacare. Like most Americans, we have private health insurance subsidized by an employer (my wife’s) and our monthly portion of the bill has risen modestly from $602 per month to $620. But her employer’s portion of the tab has skyrocketed 21 per cent, from $1,657 per month to $2,010 in a year.
Despite being a middling career politician without a passionate fan base, the President is worth $10 million. We learned this week that he’s so flush he considered installing an in-ground pool in a home he was renting. And so, he only cares about inflation because he’s terrified of being evicted from the White House by Donald Trump. The media here is just as concerned. That’s why they habitually regurgitate Democratic party talking points about inflation falling two-thirds from its peak.
News outlets keep telling us that the economy is just fine but we’re too dim to understand it. In a typical piece in The New York Times in November on the alleged “great disconnect” between official figures and the experiences of ordinary Americans, for example, here’s how a pair of reporters (read: activists) gushed in their lede:
“By traditional measures, the economy is strong. Inflation has slowed significantly. Wages are increasing. Unemployment is near a half-century low. Job satisfaction is up. Yet Americans don’t necessarily see it that way”.
No, we do not, because when we pay our bills each month, we know they’re a lot more than three per cent higher than they were last year. Axios argues that the administration’s arrogant claim that “voters like the economy much more than they’re willing to admit”, is correct. In other words, the Dear Leader is doing a bang-up job but the ignorant plebes are simply too stupid to understand how good they have it.
With this kind of a let-them-eat-cake approach to inflation, it’s no wonder working class voters trust Trump over Biden on the economy by a crushing 36 per cent, according to a new NBC News poll. It’s not because Trump the businessman flogs cool $399 gold shoes, “mugshot” edition NFT trading cards and silver Trump “revenge tour” coins. Inflation is a global problem, but Biden deserves his share of blame for fanning it with reckless spending at a time that called for fiscal restraint, not payouts to key voting blocks.
Much like the chaos he engineered at the border, Biden’s now asking Americans to trust him to spend more of his ninth decade untangling a mess largely of his own making. If it weren’t for Trump’s unpopularity – a new ABC News/IPSOS poll has just 29 per cent of Americans regarding him favorably – Biden’s re-election prospects would be about as likely as Burnley winning the Premier League. If they’re serious about stopping the man they hype as a threat to democracy and an election denier, Biden and his acolytes in the press can’t afford to keep playing the inflation denial game.
