Democrat President Joe Biden has responded to the news that the real wages of American workers fell again last month as a result of the inflation crisis by falsely claiming that they rose and that the crisis was caused by the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Notably, last month was the 26th month in a row that the real wages of Americans fell.
“Today’s report is good news for hard working families,” Biden said in a statement. “It shows continued progress tackling inflation at the same time that unemployment remains at historic lows. Annual inflation is now at the lowest level since March 2021, and less than half of what it was last June. After gas and grocery prices increased rapidly last year due to the war in Ukraine, inflation has fallen for 11 months in a row.”
“While there is more work to do, the plan that I laid out a year ago to bring down the cost of living and sustain stable and steady growth is working,” he added. “We have taken action to bring down the cost of gas at the pump, prescription drugs, and health insurance premiums. At the same time, the unemployment rate has remained below 4 percent for the longest stretch in more than 50 years, helping to support wage gains over the last year, even after accounting for inflation.”
According to the report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics that Biden referenced, from April to May real “average weekly earnings decreased 0.1 percent over the month due to the change in real average hourly earnings combined with a 0.3-percent decrease in the average workweek.”
Additionally, real “average hourly earnings increased 0.2 percent, seasonally adjusted, from May 2022 to May 2023. The change in real average hourly earnings combined with a decrease of 0.9 percent in the average workweek resulted in a 0.7-percent decrease in real average weekly earnings over this period,” the report said.