Karine Jean-Pierre Falsely Claims American’s Real Wages Rose Last Month

On Tuesday, White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre defended the disappointing report on inflation in August, falsely claiming that Americans’ real wages rose last month and pointing to the “Inflation Reduction Act,” which is expected to actually increase inflation.

“On the inflation report that came out today — you know, the President promising the Inflation Reduction Act will do just that and bring down costs.  But this bill does not address food or housing prices of which we are seeing going up.  So what is your message to Americans who are seeing these rising costs?  And are you confident that you’re doing enough to finally bring these down?” A reporter asked.

“The President has said for some time now, when it comes to his — his number-one economic priority is to deal with inflation, is to make sure that we are lowering costs for Americans — for the American people; for American families; Americans who have to come around the table, you know, once a month in particular to figure out how are they going to pay those bills,” Jean-Pierre responded. “Again, this is why the event that we’re having in less than 45 minutes to celebrate and talk about — you’ll hear from the President about the Inflation Reduction Act — is so critical.”

“When you look at the data, the inflation data, look, we’re seeing more progress bringing global inflation down in the U.S. economy as I just stated moments ago.  Overall, prices have been essentially flat in our country these — these last two months.  That is welcome news for American families, with more work still to do,” Jean-Pierre claimed, even though prices did rise last month as inflation was significantly worse than economists’ expectations.

“This month, we saw some welcome moderation in the price increases for food at the grocery store. It’s moderating, which is important.  And real wages are going up again for the second month in a row, giving hard families — hardworking families just a little bit of breathing room that you hear the President say,” Jean-Pierre falsely claimed.

According to a report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, Americans’ real wages did, in fact, fall in August.

“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,” the report said.

Over the last year, Americans decreased even further. According to the report, “Real average hourly earnings decreased 2.8 percent, seasonally adjusted, from August 2021 to August 2022. The change in real average hourly earnings combined with a decrease of 0.6 percent in the average workweek resulted in a 3.4-percent decrease in real average weekly earnings over this period.”