Who is the real middle-class president?

OPINION:

President Biden talks incessantly about his “middle class out” economic strategy. Given his record, it would have been more accurate to call it the “middle class down and out” plan. Inflation has eroded any income gains under Mr. Biden’s presidency.

Now Vice President Kamala Harris has her own riff on this theme. Her campaign motto is “Building up the middle class.” It isn’t exactly “make America great again,” but Democrats don’t have a lot of time to come up with anything catchier, given that Ms. Harris was reluctantly chosen as the eighth-inning relief pitcher for the president, who had long ago lost his fastball.

But Ms. Harris and Mr. Biden are, as the saying goes, birds of a feather who flock together. They are running on almost the same agenda we’ve seen for four years.

The central problem is that the record is much more meaningful for most Americans than the message. The irony of this “building up the middle class” mantra is that no administration in recent times has done more to tear down the middle class than Biden-Harris.

The chart below, based on the most recent Census Bureau data on incomes and poverty, shows that under President Donald Trump, middle-class incomes rose faster than under all three previous presidents combined.

The difference between the Trump and Biden administrations is $8,000 per household in Mr. Trump’s favor.

In these numbers, I include the COVID-19 year 2020. Excluding that black swan event of the pandemic that year, Mr. Trump’s number for income gains would have been well over $6,000.

This same data shows that income gains for minorities and female-headed households were larger under Mr. Trump. Poverty rates also fell faster under Mr. Trump.

The reason for Biden-Harris’ lousy record is that although incomes grew under both presidencies, inflation erased all the real income gains for workers. In other words, if the price of eggs, bread, rent and gas goes up by more than your paycheck, you’re at best treading water. Most households are using pots and pans to keep the water out of the basement.

Mr. Biden and Ms. Harris seem to have really believed that inflation would transitory. They drank the Kool-Aid of a trendy new economic theory called Modern Monetary Theory. This theory posited that the U.S. government could spend and borrow without any collateral damage. But a student in a high school economics class could tell you that handing out money to stimulate demand for goods and services is likely to raise the price of goods and services. In the end, we learned the hard way: There’s no getting around the law of supply and demand.

Now that the economy is showing signs of cracks in the hill, the only remedy Ms. Harris has is trillions of more spending and borrowing. Her campaign thinks the Federal Reserve can cut interest rates and the pain will disappear. Maybe. It is more likely, however, that this will only stimulate more spending and make the economy even more vulnerable. What they won’t do is cut excessive government spending and debt — for example, by canceling some $300 billion of failed green energy programs.

The left shouts that Mr. Trump will rekindle inflation with his tax cuts. But that’s a hard message to sell, given that there was virtually no inflation during the Trump presidency. His average annual inflation rate was 1.9%, versus 6% for Biden-Harris.

Mr. Trump will continue to argue to the voters that he is the president who will “build out” the middle class. Even though the future is hard to predict, he has history firmly on his side.

• Stephen Moore is visiting senior fellow at The Heritage Foundation.