Paltry $3 Wage Increase Explains Democrat Losses
Real earnings have increased less than 17% on an hourly basis since the early 1970s. No wonder many American households feel like they can’t keep up.
Neither political party has a plan to address wages.
Photographer: David McNew/Getty Images
Exit polls from last week’s US elections showed that the economy was at the center of the decision among Americans on who to vote for. Just how well the economy performed under President Joe Biden has been a fiercely debated topic. But the truth is that whoever is occupying the Oval Office either gets too much credit or too much blame for the how the economy has performed.
And yet, polls show that a major reason why Vice President Kamala Harris lost to former President Donald Trump was because of the spike in inflation rates in 2021. Lost in the debate about who or what was the cause of the surge in consumer prices – Disruptions to the global supply chain? Too much government spending? A central bank that was slow to tighten monetary policy? – was that a political problem five decades in the making was exposed.