DiabloWags said:
Dajo sure knows how to cherry-pick.
So does Sleepy Joe.
In 1982-1984 dollars, which takes account of inflation, avg hourly earnings for all private workers were $11.39 when Biden took office. As of May, they were at $11.03
That's a 3.16% decline in real earnings for the average worker across the 29 months of the Biden presidency.
These are official Labor Department statistics.
If inflation was caused by covid (and the supply chain disruptions and the govt response etc.) then the appropriate measure for impact is pre-covid vs. now. That's what Krugman does above in reporting blue collar workers are better off. That's the question coming from dimitrig. That's the economics question.
The measure you are using of just looking at Biden's time in office sounds good for politics but is flawed for economics because of what Krugman called "composition effects". Wages spiked in 2020. Why? Because so many jobs were lost at the bottom that the average wage went up. During Biden's Presidency those low paying jobs have been restored, bringing the average wage back down. Composition effects.
From pre-covid through low paying job losses under Trump through low paying job gains under Biden, and all the government handouts making sure people didn't starve (plus Trump's PPP grift machine), the data shows blue collar workers are better off than before covid.
Bottom line, the Biden jobs boom brought blue collar jobs back at higher real wages than those jobs previously existed at.
That's a remarkable success story and something we should celebrate but for political reasons people try to pretend it didnt happen. But it is what the data shows.
Corporate news will continue to fixate on inflation as long as they can but they are missing the big picture as are Biden's opponents. It will be hard for Biden to overcome the corporate news bias against Democrats, but that is always the case.
https://www.epi.org/publication/state-of-working-america-wages-in-2020/#:~:text=Wages%20grew%20largely%20because%20more,25%25%20of%20the%20wage%20distribution.
