The latest Consumer Price Index (CPI) data for March shows that inflation continued its upward trend with a 1.2 percent increase since last month and an 8.5 percent increase over the last year according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Inflation in the United States has not been this high since December 1981.
As the BLS release notes, inflation's continued surge is being driven by rising costs for shelter, food, and gas. Even when CPI is measured without gas and food — eliminating the fuel variable Biden and Democrats have sought to blame on Putin's invasion of Ukraine — year-over-year inflation rose 6.5 percent, the biggest increase since August 1982. The White House's spin that the American economy is doing better despite its attempts to blame Putin just isn't borne out in the data.
CPI for all items rises 1.2% in March; gasoline, shelter, food indexes rise https://t.co/MdFNWoD78N #CPI #BLSdata
— BLS-Labor Statistics (@BLS_gov) April 12, 2022
The energy index in March was up 32 percent in the last year while the food index increased 8.8 percent, the largest year-over-year increase since May 1981.
For the Biden administration and Democrats in Congress, the new 40-year high for inflation hitting on their watch shatters their claims that "build back better" is working. Economic woes also pose a continued — and apparently escalating — threat to Democrats in this November's midterm elections. It also, for the record, again debunks the White House's earlier claims that inflation was just transitory.
For once, though, it appears White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki was correct — at least partially — when she warned in Monday's briefing that March data would show "CPI headline inflation to be extraordinarily elevated," though she attempted to preemptively blame "Putin’s Price Hike" as if prices just began their record-setting climb since Russia invaded Ukraine. As usual, she and the rest of the Biden administration refuse to accept any modicum of responsibility for the crises impacting Americans.
Last week's jobs report for March showed that average wages increased 5.6 percent year-over-year — a number Biden bragged about in his remarks from the White House. But as March's CPI report reminds, Americans' real wages are down now nearly three percent since last year. Is this the "build back better" Biden promised?
BREAKING: Another MASSIVE blow to working-class Americans, the Consumer Price Index is up 8.5%, the HIGHEST rise since 1981.
— Congressman Byron Donalds (@RepDonaldsPress) April 12, 2022
Prices ??
Wages ??
INFLATION IS TAXATION
As the March CPI shows, inflation is hitting not just gas, but basically everything Americans buy or use on an everyday basis — fruits and vegetables, meat, food at restaurants, food at home, electricity, gas for vehicles, natural gas, airline fares, clothes, medical care. The numbers don't lie, but Democrats apparently do. Setting aside the fact that gas prices were already up more than one dollar under Biden in his first year following his campaign pledge to "end" fossil fuels, does the White House expect to be able to blame increasing costs for all these other items on Putin too? It's laughable, which means the Biden administration is sure to try their best to pass the buck yet again.
In the past, Biden and his administration have blamed "big meat," greedy CEOs, Vladimir Putin, COVID, Donald Trump, and the Republican minority in Congress, to name a few, but never accepted responsibility. Joe Biden's colloquial pledge that "the buck" stops with him is just another broken Biden promise on the smoldering pile of crises next to "build back better" and his "plan" to "shut down the virus."
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