Real wages have shrunk by over three percent since President Biden took office, Republican Leader on the Ways and Means Committee Rep. Kevin Brady (R-TX) warns on “Washington Watch” with Tony Perkins, noting that inflation is accelerating on American families and small businesses.
CLICK HERE to listen.
On April’s Consumer Price Index report, Rep. Brady said:
“The White House is trying to spin this as though inflation has peaked, and the President’s policies are working. But it was a lot of bad news for families and small businesses. Core inflation, which is a big issue, is accelerating. That was far worse than expectations and of course another month and people’s paychecks shrunk again. So this is tough news.
“And then if you look back just three months, for the last three months, inflation is running at 9.9 percent. The media tends to ignore those. But the point is, inflation is accelerating and people are losing buying power more and more each month.”
On the troubling worker shortage driving the U.S. economy towards a recession, Rep. Brady said:
“On Friday, we saw this jobs report, which again, at least met expectations, but if you looked into it, what you notice was our country lost 355,000 workers – shrunk the number of people actually working. So because we don’t have people to assemble products, to manage the production lines, deliver them or service them, that means this is going to drive inflation up even higher.”
On President Biden’s COVID stimulus worsening the worker shortage and driving inflation higher, Rep. Brady added:
“The people who are staying away from work are the prime age workers, the ones we love. 20 to about 54 years old. That’s the one you want in your company, and they’re staying away. And I think it’s because inflation is eating up so much of what they earn, and things like child care have increased under this president because of some of the COVID stimulus funding. Frankly, you know, people are making decision: ‘why should I work’?”
Asked to respond to the argument that overturning Roe would have devastating impacts on the economy, Rep. Brady said:
“The country and the states that have the workers are the ones who are going to win the economic future. So, you know, I think if you were to take such a moral issue and try to put an economic spin on it, you would have to have to come to that conclusion. It is good for America to have more young people, more opportunities, more skills, more hopes and dreams.”