During the Biden-Harris years, more granular data pointed to considerable strain. Real median household income fell relative to its pre-COVID peak. The poverty rate ticked up, as did the jobless rate. The number of Americans spending more than 30 percent of their income on rent climbed. The delinquency rate on credit cards surged, as did the share of families struggling to afford enough nutritious food, as did the rate of homelessness.
Government transfers buoyed families early in the Biden administration. But they contributed to inflation, and much of the money went away in the second half of Biden’s term. The food-stamp boost, the extended child tax credit, the big unemployment-insurance payments—each expired. And the White House never passed the permanent care-economy measures it had considered.
Interest rates were a problem too. The mortgage rate more than doubled during the Biden-Harris years, making credit-card balances, car payments, and homes unaffordable. A family purchasing a $400,000 apartment with 20 percent down would pay roughly $2,500 a month today versus $1,800 three years ago.
I dunno, that all looks pretty bad too. The lesson from this election is that you can’t tunnel vision on the numbers that look good while dismissing the ones that look bad, but that’s exactly what Democrats did. Worse, when working class voters expressed their pain, Democrats talked down to them and basically told them it wasn’t real and they were being tricked by fake news.
