During an interview with CBS on Friday, White House Council of Economic Advisers Chair Jared Bernstein responded to a question on how long it will take prices to drop if President Joe Biden is re-elected by stating that we have a good job market, wages are outpacing inflation, and Biden has cut some costs.
Host Elaine Quijano asked, “But in terms of a timeframe, Jared, if people try to look ahead and plan for their futures and budget for things like groceries and those tangible sort of everyday goods, what should they be looking at if there is any kind of potential timeframe in mind if the President is re-elected, how long would it take for prices to come down?”
Bernstein responded, “Well, again, I think one of the things we can look at is numbers like those in the jobs report today. One of the things we saw in this job[s] report is that if you look at the share of women working in the workforce, the employment rate, that’s the highest it’s ever been, with data back to 1948. That is [a] historical record. We’ve talked about the record on the low unemployment. I think we also need to reference the fact that wages have been outpacing prices, real wage gains, for about 13 months in a row, on a year-over-year basis. So, paychecks are going further. And then I think to get right to the heart of your question, I think you have to ask who is fighting for whom. This is a President who is consistently fighting to cut taxes on the middle class and to ensure that the wealthy and the corporations pay their fair share, aggressively going after junk fees, whether it’s credit card fees, airline fees, in entertainment, he’s having — making real progress in cutting those junk fees, and of course, again, on prescription drugs, on health care, on the cost of insulin, these are measures that are in effect, actively lowering costs that the other side wants to reverse.”
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