Stop complaining about President Joe Biden’s economy, Americans! You’re wealthier than ever! Yes, CNN reached new heights of gaslighting when it tried to sell that line with a straight face to readers.
CNN Reporter and in-house Bidenomics shill Matt Egan ran a false story riddled with utter nonsense. “Americans have never been wealthier,” read Egan’s headline. “Fueled by a resurgent stock market and rising home values, US household wealth hit a record $154.3 trillion during the second quarter of this year, according to federal data.” But as Heritage Foundation economist EJ Antoni bluntly put it, CNN’s framing was flat-out “wrong.”
The report CNN referenced — Antoni told MRC Business — “is measured in current dollars, meaning it’s not adjusted for inflation.” The reality is that “[t]he spending, borrowing, and creating of money by the government the last three years has caused prices to rise and created asset bubbles, like in stocks and real estate. That increases nominal wealth, but not real wealth.” [Emphasis added.]
In fact, Antoni explained, “[a]djusted for inflation, household net wealth is not at a record high today,” Antoni said. Household net wealth is actually down five percent “from the end of 2021. It is also nearly unchanged since the end of 2020, despite tens of millions more people working today.”
CNN's post of Egan's story on X (formely Twitter) was heavily ratioed, with over 1,600 comments and just over 400 likes.
Americans have never been wealthier https://t.co/tRSIuuND0M
— CNN (@CNN) September 11, 2023
Egan’s timing for his propaganda also couldn’t come at a worse time. Just a day after his story was released, The Hill ran an article headlined: “Poverty rate increases for first time since 2010.” Specifically, the poverty rate in 2022 increased 4.6 percentage points according to data from the Census Bureau, which apparently hadn’t happened in roughly 13 years.
A July 2023 LendingClub report found that “61% of consumers lived paycheck to paycheck as of June 2023, with 21% struggling to pay their monthly bills.” The “61%” figure is unchanged from June 2022, according to the report. But it gets worse: “Among consumers earning $50,000 to $100,000, 65% lived paycheck to paycheck as of June 2023, compared to 60% in June 2022.” But, according to Egan, Americans are “wealthier” than ever before! What a joke.
Yet Egan still had the audacity to whine that Americans consider Bidenomics a colossal failure. “Despite the economy’s improving fortunes, the public is not giving the White House credit,” Egan complained. “A staggering 58% of the public says President Joe Biden’s policies have made economic conditions in the United States worse, according to a CNN poll released last week. That’s up from 50% last fall.” Earth to CNN!
Household net worth hits new nominal high, but in real terms is down about 5% from Q4 '21 and nearly flat from Q4 '20 - households have added nearly almost no net worth in two and a half years; seems odd when we're told tens of millions more people are working today... pic.twitter.com/uw6hHVMwc5
— E.J. Antoni, Ph.D. (@RealEJAntoni) September 8, 2023
Antoni reasoned that the decline in real household net wealth, which Egan pretends doesn’t exist, is a reflection of the ongoing effects of the inflation crisis brought on by Biden’s outrageous spending policies:
[The wealth situation] speaks to just how much wealth is being collected by the hidden tax of inflation. Roughly all the household net wealth that was generated over the last two and a half years has been confiscated by the government through inflation.
Quit deceiving people, CNN.
Conservatives are under attack. Contact CNN at 404-827-1500 and demand the outlet tell the truth about how terrible Bidenomics has been for the U.S. economy.
