Despite months of Democrat and corporate media insistence that inflation is “cooling,” prices jumped another 3.4 percent in December.
Americans not only paid more for goods at the end of 2023 than they did the year prior, the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Consumer Price Index found, but they also saw a 0.3 percent spike in prices over the previous month. The biggest bump in expenses occurred with necessities like shelter (6.2 percent), electricity (3.3 percent), and food (2.7 percent), and far surpassed the Federal Reserve’s target inflation rate of just 2 percent in December.
The hike in prices is bound to exacerbate voters’ pessimistic views of the economy and the future of the nation. The record-high inflation Americans have experienced under President Joe Biden will likely also affect the 2024 election, since concern about the economy reigns supreme among voters’ priorities.
The White House is not blind to the money worry gripping the nation. That’s why it is scrambling to spin a third year of price spikes in its favor. Biden insisted the most recent CPI report suggests inflation is “down by nearly two-thirds from its peak” and “at its lowest level since May 2021.” Both are deceptive, wordsmithed claims that ignore just how far prices have climbed since 2020 — approximately 20 percent.
National Economic Council Director Lael Brainard repeated the “two-thirds” talking point from the White House press podium on Thursday. Shortly after she promised “encouraging news today on inflation,” Brainard told the press “prices have come down for some key household items.”
Brainard’s optimism about the country’s grocery shopping habits does not match Americans’ views. A new Axios-Harris poll found that a majority of U.S. voters are “‘triggered’ by trips to the grocery store.” Approximately two-thirds “think food will keep getting more expensive” no matter what the administration says.
Despite voters’ uneasiness about increased inflation, corporate media also framed their coverage of the latest economic news as positive. Axios, a repeat offender at telling voters the economy is great and their perceptions are wrong, wondered in its debut “Axios Vibes” survey analysis why Americans are still concerned about inflation even though it “has dipped in recent months.”
“It’s not what voters see — the economy’s improving with rising wages and low unemployment. It’s how they feel that could tank President Biden in November,” Axios continued.
The Associated Press took things one step further when it asserted in a news alert on Thursday that even though “U.S. inflation edged up in December, fueled by food and housing prices,” the financial burden on Americans “rose only mildly.”
When outlets question why Americans are “unusually down on a solid economy,” they prove their culpability in a giant scheme to cover up Biden’s terrible economic track record.
To the media, there is no world in which Americans can reasonably feel bad about the “strong US economy” because corporate media take the “strong US economy” talking points the White House feeds them as truth. When polls, data, and their own grocery bills say something different, they willfully turn a blind eye and lie to save face.
Make no mistake: the months and months of reports insisting that inflation is no big deal and Americans are stupid for complaining about rising prices are part of the propaganda press’ 2024 elections strategy to keep Democrats in power. Leftist media’s insistence on telling Americans what they see isn’t real only further erodes its rock-bottom credibility.
Jordan Boyd is a staff writer at The Federalist and co-producer of The Federalist Radio Hour. Her work has also been featured in The Daily Wire, Fox News, and RealClearPolitics. Jordan graduated from Baylor University where she majored in political science and minored in journalism. Follow her on Twitter @jordanboydtx.
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