Workers Have Good Cause to Be Mad at Joe Biden

Huge Gifts to Big Labor Have Fueled Inflation, Eroded Paychecks

This summer, as the next White House race heats up, a number of media apologists for Big Labor are beating their heads about why Joe Biden, whom they properly regard as the most pro-forced unionism President ever, is so unpopular with American workers and their families.

Union boss-friendly pundits like the New Yorker’s John Cassidy insist the low regard in which wage-earners across the country hold President Biden is anomalous, because the massive, Big Labor-backed spending bills he has signed into law are “boosting” workers. But the actual economic data tell a completely different story. According to the most recent U.S. Labor Department analysis available as this Newsletter edition goes to press in late June, the average, inflation-adjusted weekly pay for private-sector employees nationwide has fallen by a disheartening 5.6% since Mr. Biden’s inauguration as President in January 2021.

So Far, Inflation Under Joe Biden Has Averaged Almost 7%; It Was 1.4% in January 2021 

Moreover, as George Mason University finance professor Anthony Sanders showed in a June 13 commentary, year-over-year negative growth in real weekly wages has been virtually continuous for 26 straight months since April 2021, that is, roughly three months into the Biden Administration.

Unfortunately for the fact-challenged President and his supporters in the establishment media, falling real pay is not a problem he can truly claim he inherited from his predecessor.

Nor can it be attributed to the ham-fisted efforts by federal, state and local politicians starting in March 2020 to use lockdowns to slow the spread of COVID-19, as costly as these efforts were in other regards.

Over the course of Republican Donald Trump’s presidency, from January 2017 to January 2021, private-sector employees’ inflation-adjusted pay grew by 6.7%. Even during Mr. Trump’s COVID 19-racked last year, real pay continued to grow. National Right to Work Committee President Mark Mix commented:

“As much as President Biden’s media enablers like to pretend it’s a mystery why he’s so unpopular with people who depend on their own or their family breadwinners’ paychecks to get by, it’s really no mystery at all.

“Real earnings for business employees were increasing at a healthy pace when he took office, but almost immediately after he began implementing his Big Labor-boosting, Tax & Spend agenda, they started falling.

“Of course, the key reason why workers’ real spending power has shrunk substantially during the Biden Administration is the worst consumer price inflation in decades.

“During the first two years and four months of the Biden presidency, the average annual inflation rate as measured by the Labor Department was nearly 7%. 

“In contrast, the average annual inflation during the previous four years was less than 2.5%, and the rate actually slowed to 1.4% by January 2021.”

Multi-Trillion-Dollar Biden Spending Hikes, Fed Accommodation Fuel Inflation

A wide range of economists agree that the inflation spike is largely due to the roughly $5 trillion in spending hikes foisted on American taxpayers by Mr. Biden, with ample help from his allies on Capitol Hill. 

The inflationary damage could have been greatly mitigated, or even forestalled, had the Federal Reserve acted immediately to offset this fiscal madness. 

However, perhaps because it was politically intimidated, the Fed failed to tighten at all until well into the Biden presidency. 

On the fiscal front, economists ranging from Trump adviser Larry Kudlow to Obama adviser Larry Summers agree, the $1.9 trillion mislabeled as the “American Rescue Plan” (ARP) and dumped into the economy in March 2021 by Congress and Joe Biden is a key factor in the recent surge in inflation. 

With Joe Biden and Co.’s Aid, Union Bosses Have Prospered As Real Worker Pay Falls

By far the biggest beneficiaries of the ARP were union bosses, especially government union bosses, and their allied politicians.

The ARP included a flabbergasting $470 billion in state and local government bailouts.

This huge sum of money enabled fiscally reckless forced-unionism states like New York, California, and New Jersey to paper over the massive structural problems in their government budgets, even as it fueled inflation that cut workers’ spending power.

The President and his Capitol Hill collaborators gave another enormous boost to Big Labor late in the summer of 2022 with his signing into law of the laughably mislabeled “Inflation Reduction Act” (IRA).

This monstrous agglomeration of tax increases and new deficit spending, including an estimated $1.2 trillion for a myriad of new and expanded “green” subsidies, was “marbled with political and union favoritism,” as a Wall Street Journal editorial noted just before the Senate okayed the scheme, 51-50. 

“Just for starters,” said Mr. Mix, “the IRA sets a new ‘base tax credit’ for solar and wind energy production of $5.20 per megawatt hour [MWh]. 

“But if contractors for renewable energy projects acquiesce to labor regulations that effectively ensure their employees will be unionized, they are able to claim a tax credit of $26 per MWh. That is, five times as high.

“No plausible environmental or consumer interest is being advanced by such provisions. They were an unabashed payoff to Big Labor.”

Profound dissatisfaction among workers and their families about the detrimental impact of the Biden Big Labor agenda on their living standards is a key reason why the President’s Democrat Party lost operational control over the U.S. House in the 2022 elections.

However, largely because of the clout of the forced dues-fueled union political machine, Biden ally Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) has been able to hold on as Senate majority leader.

Thanks to Committee Survey Program, Big Labor Politicians Will Be Held Accountable

“With both the House and the Senate still narrowly divided and an extremely unpredictable presidential contest looming next year, there is a serious danger Big Labor politicians could be in a position to do even more damage to ordinary Americans’ living standards by early 2025,” warned Mr. Mix.

“But the National Right to Work Committee will be fighting back aggressively throughout the 2023-24 election cycle to keep politicians who regularly support union special interests over the interests of workers and other ordinary citizens from whitewashing their records.

“The Committee is especially eager to hold accountable the senators and representatives who voted for Big Labor’s ARP and IRA in 2021 and 2022, and face potentially difficult re-election campaigns in 2024.”

---

This article was originally published in our monthly newsletter. Go here to access previous newsletter posts.

To support our cause and help end forced unionism, go here to donate.

---