Tipsheet

Biden Faces Community Notes Yet Again for Claim on Inflation

Rebecca Downs
Rebecca Downs  |  December 04, 2023 7:00 PM

Last week we covered how a social media post from President Joe Biden, specifically his personal X account, was hit with context from Community Notes. The post presented a woeful misunderstanding of inflation and the economy overall, as it called on corporations to be the ones to "Give Americans a break" by lowering their prices. Biden, or whoever comes up with these posts, doesn't look to be deterred by Community Notes, though. 

On Saturday, Biden's official account fired off a much shorter but still problematic post about inflation. "Inflation was 0% last month – and our economy grew by more than 5% last quarter," the post claimed, which then made reference to the president's ill-fated plan of "Bidenomics."

Biden's post refers to the PCE index, which, according to the Federal Reserve, should be at 2 percent. The PCE index is still at 3 percent. Community Notes goes on to also mention that a "more commonly referenced inflation index is CPI, which shows annual inflation of 3.2%." The cited sources include multiple links from the Bureau of Economic Analysis, Forbes, the Federal Reserve, and the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Posts like this desperately try to make something out of the narrative that inflation has been coming down ever so slightly over the past few months. Regardless, it's still much higher than it was under former President Donald Trump's administration. 

"According to [U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics], consumer inflation remained unchanged month-over-month in October but remains up 3.2 percent over the previous 12 months — notably above the Federal Reserve's target inflation rate of just 2.0 percent. Core CPI inflation, excluding food and energy prices, rose 0.2 percent in October for a 4.0 percent annual increase," Spencer addressed when addressing October's inflation report.

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This is 0 percent claim is also tactic that the Biden White House has gone with before, as Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre tried in August of last year with regards to July 2022's inflation.

It's no wonder that, as Spencer highlighted earlier, the Democrats look to be running away from further discussion of "Bidenomics," after the president and others in his administration had tried so desperately and unsuccessfully to sell it for months.

Further, as we've been covering, Biden and his administration's claims about the economy just are not translating to a boost in the polls. Biden is at a 40.1 percent approval rating, according to RealClearPolitics (RCP). He's at a 38.4 percent approval rating on the economy and a 35 percent approval rating on inflation.

The post has been hit with over 19,000 replies, including from users who point out how problematic Bidenomics has shown to be.

As was the case with the previous post from last week, the Community Notes resulted in an increase in quoted reposts. Sitting members of Congress, in this case Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT), were also among those calling out the president.