US President Joe Biden pardons the national Thanksgiving turkey, Liberty, during the annual ceremony on the South Lawn at the White House in Washington, U.S., November 20, 2023. REUTERS/Leah Milis Acquire license rights
NEW YORK, November 22 (Reuters Breakingviews) – Hello, White House. Let’s talk about Turkey. Not the meat Americans eat at Thanksgiving. Rather the other kind: let’s have an honest conversation about inflation. It stinks. As people sit down to carve birds on Thursday, they will hold grudges about it. First, grocery bills are still too high. Second, salaries aren’t really keeping pace. And third, US President Joe Biden’s communications could be more authentic on all of this.
His office issued a press release on Tuesday touting “lower prices” on Thanksgiving, the American holiday when people gorge on bread, meat and pie. The statement notes that lower inflation is one of the things Americans should be grateful for. And it is true that price increases have slowed down and, for certain items, prices have even fallen. Gasoline prices, for example, are down a quarter from their June 2022 peak, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. The average price of a Thanksgiving meal also dropped compared to last year.
The problem is, Americans are still paying more than 50% more to fill up their gas tanks than when Biden took office in January 2021. Food prices in an average American city, are up by a fifth since December 2020, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. The cost of a typical Thanksgiving meal hit a record high last year, according to calculations by the American Farm Bureau Federation cited by the administration. The fact that they have declined slightly since then is little help when they are still a higher quarter than they were in 2019.
It is true, as the administration points out, that higher wages help. But that’s not enough: the average hourly wage of private sector workers has only increased 14% since December 2020. And for the average American, that matters a lot. Although many economic indicators suggest that American citizens are doing quite well overall, this is not really the case. According to an October poll from the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research, nearly three-quarters of respondents say the economy is “poor“. Biden might claim their pomegranate martini glasses are half full. In return, they might feel like he’s serving bullshit.
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(The author is a Reuters Breakingviews columnist. The opinions expressed are their own.)
BACKGROUND NEWS
The US White House issued a press release on November 21 saying that “we have much to be thankful for this Thanksgiving, including further progress in reducing inflation.”
Editing by Jonathan Guilford and Aditya Sriwatsav
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The opinions expressed are those of the author. They do not reflect the views of Reuters News, which, under the Trust Principles, is committed to integrity, independence and freedom from bias.
