A curious contrast, in Joe Biden’s America.
“More Americans are opting to buy luxury vehicles than ever before,” The Wall Street Journal reported earlier this month, “a shift fueled by cash-rich buyers who were able to bank savings during the pandemic and growing wealth among shoppers in the upper-income brackets.” Sweet rides comprised 17.3 percent “of the overall U.S. car market in June,” a significant hike from 2019’s 14.1 percent.
Yet at the same time, discount stores are deluged. According to the Journal, Dollar General Corp. and Dollar Tree Inc. disclosed “higher quarterly sales as the … chains raised prices and attracted thrifty shoppers looking for groceries or other essentials.” The Street is watching -- the stock for the former has risen by 20 percent since Donald Trump left office, and the share price for the latter has spiked by 60 percent.
The rich get richer, and -- well, you know the rest.
How can this be? Hasn’t the Biden administration “expanded child tax credit payments”? What about its massive “infrastructure” package, to “rebuild America’s roads, bridges and rails” and “invest in communities that have too often been left behind”? The president has denied states the ability to charge premiums for some on their Medicaid rolls, and created “the Affordable Connectivity Program … which provides eligible households $30 per month off their internet bills.” In April, he announced “more than $385 million to states to help families and individuals with their home energy costs -- including summer cooling -- through the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP),” an enhancement of the previous “$4.5 billion that the American Rescue Plan provided to LIHEAP and the first $100 million installment of a five-year, $500 million investment in LIHEAP from President Biden’s Bipartisan Infrastructure Law.” And Yahoo! reported that the administration has “discharged $34 billion in student loan debt” since taking office.
So, so much compassion. So why isn’t “inclusive growth” flourishing?
The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) found that between July 2021 and July 2022, “real average hourly earnings decreased 2.7 percent, seasonally adjusted,” and when combined with “a decrease of 0.9 percent in the average workweek,” Joe Sixpack and Jane Diet Coke have experienced a decrease in real pay of a 3.5 percent. That’s for those with a job, of course. At the lowest end of the income scale, unemployment has yet to recover from its lockdown-era tumble. BLS data show that for workers without a high-school diploma, the jobless rate, 6.2 percent, remains a half-point higher than in did in February 2020. For those possessing at least a bachelor’s degree, unemployment is 1.9 percent -- right where it was in the month before lockdown lunacy attacked.
Does Elizabeth Warren know about this? If the barriers to joining the middle class were all but insurmountable when the Evil Orange One occupied the White House, why are things even bleaker now?
Leftists aren’t interested in probing that question in an honest way, but if they were, they’d take a fact-finding mission to a chunk of land between Nevada and Colorado.
Utah has a low tax burden and a right-to-work law. It doesn’t have widespread food-stamp usage and high Medicaid participation. Folks in the Beehive State simply work hard (the labor force participation rate is back to where it was in February 2020, and unemployment is second-lowest in the nation) and keep government in its proper place. The result? Low crime, an almost comically small illegitimacy rate, strong health, and John Fetterman-approved “shared prosperity.”
In 2016, Brookings Institution analysts processed data compiled by the Pew Research Center. Their research concluded that 30 percent of American households qualified as “upper income,” with 48 percent landing in the middle and 22 percent at the bottom. But for the 100 largest metro areas, a curious troika posted the highest shares of households ranking in the middle class. The Ogden-Clearfield, Provo-Orem, and Salt Lake City regions grabbed the first, second, and third slots. Deep-blue utopias -- e.g., Boston, D.C., New York City, San Francisco -- clustered near the bottom, with lower-class shares north of 35 percent. Utah’s three superstars? Seventeen percent, 14 percent, and 19 percent, respectively.
If there’s any state that pursues the exact opposite of the “progressive” policy prescription, it’s Utah. But somehow, it achieves the outcomes that liberals claim they seek.
For the least among us, times are tough, and likely to get tougher. But lost in the endless struggle to think well of itself, don’t expect the Biden administration to reverse its destructive course.
I’m happy to find you. I don’t understand what happened. I just know you’re gone. I’m so sad. You and your co-worker were the the only sane voices that I could find. There were many dark days that I was doubting my own reasoning and then I would hear the broadcast and be reinforced and reinvigorated. You brought so much back story and research to every broadcast. Please keep the focus local. You all were the only truth in NM. Once again I’m so sad but I wish you the best.