The success of Joe Biden’s 2024 reelection campaign could depend on whether he can effectively convince voters that his economic agenda has improved the lives of working-class and middle-income Americans. Unfortunately for the president, the best available data suggests that hasn’t been the case.
Despite having committed trillions in new government spending programs, and running massive deficits in the process, government surveys reveal millions of working Americans believe they are worse off than they were in January 2021, when Biden first entered the White House.
The U.S. Census Bureau regularly conducts Household Pulse Surveys (HPS). Among other things, the Household Pulse Surveys ask respondents about spending and debt, loss of employment, anxiety, and the effects of natural disasters.
One of the most important questions included in the HPS asks Americans about their “difficulty paying for usual household expenses.” In a truly healthy, growing economy, fewer, not more, working Americans should say that they are having less trouble paying their “usual” bills. But the exact opposite has occurred.
In January 2021, the first month of Biden’s presidency, an estimated 80.53 million Americans found it “somewhat” or “very” difficult to pay their household expenses. According to the most recent HPS survey, conducted in July 2023, that number soared to 86.92 million, an increase of more than 6 million.
That means in Biden’s America, more than 1 in 3 households are struggling to pay their bills.
The income brackets most affected are those earning $50,000 to $150,000, many of whom would be considered part of America’s “middle class.” For example, the number of households earning $50,000 to $75,000 that are having trouble paying their usual household expenses increased from 10.01 million in January 2021 to 13.34 million in July 2023.
The HPS survey data further suggests that Americans having trouble covering their costs are turning to credit cards, personal loans, and other forms of debt for relief. In July 2023, 85.46 million Americans relied on “credit cards or loans” to “meet spending needs in the last 7 days.” In July 2022, the number was just 74.89 million.
A growing dependence on credit cards is particularly troubling considering that the credit card delinquency rate — which measures the proportion of credit customers who have fallen behind on their bills — has increased in each of the past seven quarters and is now higher than it was before the pandemic started. Auto loan delinquencies in the second quarter of 2023 also topped pre-pandemic levels.
The HPS surveys aren’t the only data suggesting working Americans are suffering under Biden’s economic agenda. A LendingClub report published earlier in 2023 suggests 61 percent of Americans say they are living paycheck to paycheck. In cities, the number is even higher, coming in at 69 percent.
Even more stunning, 57 percent of Americans say they can’t afford to cover an emergency expense of $1,000 or more — much less than the cost of many families’ health insurance deductibles.
Although many left-wing pundits act as though the current state of the economy is nothing short of a modern golden age of economic prosperity, the evidence is overwhelming that Democrats’ reckless spending programs and expansion of the size and influence of government have caused significant harm to millions of families.
The source of the problem is not hard to pinpoint, either. Democrats have spent trillions upon trillions of dollars without offsetting the increase with additional tax revenue, effectively printing huge amounts of money. Those spending increases have created inflation that has yet to be reversed, and probably never will be.
Republicans aren’t totally without blame, either. They agreed to completely unnecessary Covid spending programs, such as sending checks to millions of Americans who never lost their jobs during the pandemic, and they failed to fix entitlement programs in 2017 and 2018, when they last had control of Congress and the White House.
Despite Republicans’ failures, though, the vast majority of the blame clearly lies with President Biden and congressional Democrats. Never before has a group of politicians so recklessly and unnecessarily increased government spending.
As a result of their inflationary policies, prices for almost everything are higher now than they were just a few years ago. To purchase the same items that collectively cost $200 in January 2019 would cost consumers $243 today, and that’s using deeply flawed CPI numbers, which fail to account for inflation in huge swaths of the economy.
The average price of unleaded gasoline is up 53 percent compared to when Biden first took office.
The price of a gallon of milk increased by 23 percent from 2020 to the end of 2022.
The average sales price of a home is more than $120,000 higher today than it was at the start of the pandemic.
The results speak for themselves. Higher costs, struggling families, and more debt — that’s what “Bidenomics” really looks like.
Justin Haskins (Jhaskins@heartland.org) is the director of the Socialism Research Center at The Heartland Institute and a New York Times bestselling author.
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