“Today’s report is more evidence that ‘Bidenflation’ and high prices will keep creating financial pressure and anxiety for working families.”

WASHINGTON, D.C. – House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Jason Smith (MO-08) released the following statement after the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) released the Consumer Price Index (CPI) for April 2024: 

“Today’s report is more evidence that ‘Bidenflation’ and high prices will keep creating financial pressure and anxiety for working families. President Biden doesn’t seem to have a clue how to fix the mess he and his reckless tax-and-spending agenda created. His only solution seems to be to break his promise to not raise taxes on Americans making less than $400,000 and let the Trump tax cuts for workers and small businesses expire.

“Ways and Means Republicans are committed to getting back to what works: putting more money in families’ pockets, helping Main Street, and growing the economy. Our tax teams are already hard at work finding ways to build on the success of the Trump tax cuts and blocking President Biden’s proposed $7 trillion tax hike. Republicans will put workers, families, farmers, and small businesses first, compared to the Democrats’ record of giving special interest tax breaks to the wealthy and well-connected.”

Key Background:

• Prices have increased 19.9 percent since President Biden took office.
• After inflation, wages have fallen 4 percent since President Biden took office.
• Inflation has become so deeply ingrained in the economy that core inflation (3.6 percent) is even higher than headline inflation.
• Inflation outpaced wages for 26 straight months of Biden’s presidency.
• Mortgage rates reached a 23 year high of 7.8 percent in October. The average monthly mortgage payment has increased by $1,179 and is 104 percent higher than when President Biden took office in January 2021.
• The average monthly payment on a new car was a near record $735 in the latest calendar quarter, according to Edmunds, up nearly 30 percent since Biden took office. The average down payment was $6,682, up from $4,729 in Q1 of 2021.
• Credit card interest rates are at the highest level in more than thirty years, while credit card debt has exceeded $1.1 trillion for a second calendar quarter, and the percentage of Americans struggling to pay credit card bills has shot up to the highest level in 12 years causing NY Fed concerns about “worsening financial distress among some households.”