The Washington Times: Biden's Inflation May Be Even Worse Than Jimmy Carter's

Article by Alfredo Ortiz in The Washington Times

Inflation is surging out of control due to ongoing reckless federal fiscal and monetary policy. This month, the Bureau of Labor Statistics announced that consumer prices rose by 6.8% over the past year, a near 40-year high. Last week, it reported that producer prices rose by a record 9.6%. This high inflation has resulted in falling real wages for ordinary Americans and declining living standards. A new analysis by the Penn Wharton Budget Model concludes surging inflation will cost ordinary American households $3,500 this year. Call it “the Biden pay cut.” 

President Biden and his media allies have attempted to downplay this painful inflation. Mr. Biden has claimed that price increases are easing, and they will “change sooner, quicker, and more rapidly than most people think.” In reality, inflation may be even higher than the top-line numbers suggest. And Democrats’ $5 trillion Build Back Broke legislation would make it even worse. 

As measured by the Consumer Price Index, inflation is officially at its highest point since the Jimmy Carter presidency and the brief hangover it caused for the Reagan Administration. The CPI increased by a historic 11.3% in 1979, 13.5% in 1980 and 10.3% in 1981. Yet the CPI methodology has been updated over the years to discount actual inflation levels and make direct comparisons between now and then difficult.

If today’s CPI is adjusted to resemble the old CPI, current inflation may be as bad or even worse than the sky-high Carter levels.

Consider that the CPI no longer directly measures housing prices, which were part of the index until 1983. This omission means that the current CPI doesn’t fully account for housing prices that have increased by 19.5% over the last year.

According to economist Peter Schiff, if the CPI still included housing prices, it would be growing at around 11% rather than 6.8%. 

Updated CPI methodology also incorporates other tricks to deflate real inflation. It uses a process known as ......

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