Biden misleads on wage growth
Jack Elbaum
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On Sunday, President Joe Biden tweeted, “Right now, real wages for the average American worker is higher than it was before the pandemic, with lower wage workers seeing the largest gains. That’s Bidenomics.”
But a look at the data reveals this claim is completely wrong.
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In March 2020, when the pandemic lockdowns began in the United States, real wages were $11.15 per hour. In June 2023, the most recent data available, real wages were $11.05 per hour.
The only way Biden’s claim could be true is if one used data prior to March 2020 — when wages were, in fact, lower. The problem with doing that, though, is we only had a daily average of five reported COVID-19 cases per day at the end of February 2020. Then, we didn’t begin to impose significant restrictions until mid-March. As such, if Biden said his tweet is actually true because of wages in January 2020, for example, we can consider that both misleading and dishonest. The pandemic did not really begin to take hold here until March.
Relatedly, the White House tweeted last week, “Inflation-adjusted income is up 3.5% since [Biden] took office and low-wage workers have seen the largest wage gains over the last year — helping power our economy.”
This is a claim about Biden’s presidency rather than the pandemic, which began a year before he took office. And this claim is even more unambiguously incorrect.
In January 2021, the month Biden was sworn in as president, real wages were $11.39 per hour. In June 2023, as I have noted, real wages were $11.05 per hour. That represents a 3% decline in real wages since Biden took office. It is unclear from where the White House received its numbers, but we can say those numbers are dead wrong.
What has this meant for people? Nothing good. Americans have lost out on anywhere between $4,900 and $7,400 due to declining real wages, according to different estimates.
Promoting falsehoods about the economy seems to be the favorite pastime of the Biden administration, as its claims on everything, from jobs to the deficit to inflation, crumble upon even a little scrutiny.
So no matter how hard the Biden administration tries, there is no spinning what the data say: Real wages are not higher than they were prior to the pandemic, and they have declined considerably since Biden took office.
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Jack Elbaum is a summer 2023 Washington Examiner fellow.