OPINION:
A pair of glasses might help a painfully squinting President Biden with his struggle to keep up with the teleprompter, but there is no apparent remedy for the myopia with which he regards the current U.S. economy. His blindness to recessionary signals is contributing to the inescapable conclusion that, less than halfway through his term in office, Americans are already anxious to see him recede into the pages of history.
Mr. Biden took the White House podium last week to respond to Thursday’s release of the nation’s second quarterly decline in gross domestic product rate. Instead, he touted rising job growth, falling unemployment and the proposed benefits of the so-called Inflation Reduction Act. “That doesn’t sound like a recession to me,” he growled before stalking off.
The president made no mention of the fateful 0.9% decline in GDP which, added to a steeper, first-quarter contraction, signals an economy in recession — a blunt reality captured in a more sobering set of measurements.
Most disturbing, the deteriorating U.S. labor force participation rate indicates Americans are abandoning their traditional zeal for work. Starting with the turn of the century, the proportion of working-age citizens in the labor force underwent a slow decline from nearly 67% to 62.4% in 2015. An upturn during the Trump administration reached 63.4% before COVID-19 triggered a precipitous drop. The subsequent Biden era saw an initial post-pandemic recovery, but the participation rate has meandered since March, sliding to 62.2% in June. So much for vows to “build back better.”
Why are millions shunning work? Years of worry about COVID-19 contagion in communal workplace spaces, expressed in confusion over face masks and vaccination mandates, has only served to sour employee attitudes in all but the most solitary of occupations. And the padding of commonsense pandemic relief benefits with trillions of dollars in socialistic government handouts has sent an unmistakable message that earning one’s daily bread in Biden-style America is more optional than essential.
The impact of such anti-industry measures on workers is emerging in another damning metric: falling productivity. During the first quarter of 2022, employee hours worked grew by 5.4% while economic output decreased by 2.3%, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported in June. Longer working hours generating smaller output combine to effectuate a 7.3% decline in nonfarm business-sector labor — the steepest decline in productivity since 1947.
Finally, U.S. employees are earning more but, sadly, still getting poorer. The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported Friday that wage and benefit growth rose 5.1% on an annualized basis during the second quarter. While nearly the highest rate in 18 years, the Commerce Department’s measure of the price of goods, is rising at a rate of 6.8%.
As workers slide backward in the Biden economy, a CNN poll finds 75% of the president’s fellow Democrats don’t want him to run again in 2024. If there is a “recession” Americans would welcome, it is to watch Mr. Biden recede in the rearview mirror.
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