Video transcript
Here is, at this point in the presidency, for both Joe Biden and President Trump, their second year in office, the first half of that year, January to July, inflation. Overall inflation was 12% for Joe Biden, 4% for President Trump. Groceries were up 16% for President Biden, a little over 3% for President Trump. Gas was up almost 70% for Biden. That's up about 12% during that timeframe for Trump. New and used cars were up almost 24% for Joe Biden, down under President Trump. But prices aren't the only numbers that matter. It's no secret Americans are feeling about how they're feeling about the high cost of living. But there's also what you make, what you earn. And that has been moving up. Real median household income hit more than $80,000 last year. That's the highest level on record, according to the Census Bureau. On the flip side, that's median household income. There's poverty. Poverty was down another half point last year to just over 10%. That, as you can see, is a historic low. So this reality and how we feel have to be reconciled. But that's hard to do when you see how these two different stories are covered. See if you can spot the difference. Here's The Washington Post in 2022 under Joe Biden. The stunning drop in child poverty is a huge story. This month, as we hit poverty rates that are the lowest in history, here's the headline in The Washington Post. Both poverty rate dropped slightly, but experts fear worse ahead. Let's reconcile how we feel in reality with Heritage Foundation economist EJ Antoni, who joins me now. EJ, it's good to see you. Listen, I know how people feel. We both talk to people, and we see it showing up in polling. But how do we compare and reconcile that with these numbers, which are historically great? They are, Will, but one of the things I think is important, going back to that first chart you showed, where it was the inflation rate difference between Trump and Biden. At the end of the day, consumers don't as much care about the inflation rate, which is the pace at which prices are increasing. What they really care about are the levels of prices. And so any additional price increases that we see under this administration, it's kind of like the straw breaking the camel's back because they are on top of all of the price increases that we had from the previous administration during Biden. And so even though, again, even though things have gotten better under President Trump, in other words, not only are paychecks bigger, but they can buy you more, which is why, as you were saying, real median household income is up, for a lot of Americans, they still have not yet regained all the lost ground that they saw under Biden. So let me just put this into real numbers so that I, and perhaps the audience, understand exactly what you're saying. If your grocery bill went up 15% under Joe Biden, the fact that it's now only going up 3% doesn't inspire a lot of credit. They're still paying 18% more than what they expected to be paying from the inflation baked in during the four years under Biden. And this, even though wages are growing. Exactly. And I think the other thing that has really left a kind of a bad taste in people's mouths, as well, is the fact that during the first year, really the first 14 months of this second Trump administration, we were making tremendous progress. In fact, if you can believe this, the average American's weekly paycheck adjusted for inflation shrunk 4% under Biden from when he entered office to when he left. But during Trump's first year, it went up 2%. In other words, we clawed back half of the losses that we saw under Biden. And again, this is the Average American's weekly paycheck.
Transcribed automatically. Expect errors in names and numbers.
