That does nothing to ease the financial pain of the middle class.\u00a0<\/strong>Worse, Bernstein\u2019s economically illiterate statements are\u00a0dismissive of the plight the\u00a0Biden administration<\/a>\u00a0helped inflict on Americans.<\/strong><\/p>\n A prime example is Bernstein\u2019s whitewashing of our nation\u2019s burgeoning credit card debt, which has surpassed $1 trillion for the first time. Even as interest rates soar, Americans are increasingly relying on credit cards to make ends meet.\u00a0But when confronted with these facts, Bernstein claimed that the financing costs for consumers have declined relative to disposable personal income, which is not true.<\/strong><\/p>\n Both credit card debt and the interest rate charged on that debt are at record highs.\u00a0Bernstein\u2019s attempt to dismiss these figures because of the growth in disposable personal income only displays his ignorance of the data<\/strong>\u2014despite its being produced by the very administration of which he is a part.<\/p>\n While disposal personal income has risen 3.8 percent under President Joe Biden, credit card debt has risen 34 percent, and interest rates are up 40 percent\u2014roughly 10 times the increase in disposable personal income. That makes Bernstein\u2019s claim about financing costs on credit cards relative to incomes being lower today mathematically impossible.<\/p>\n To save the\u00a0Biden administration<\/a>\u00a0narrative, Bernstein has tried comparing today\u2019s situation to conditions before the pandemic. In that case, he is still wrong. Although disposable personal income outpaced credit card debt (18 percent versus 11 percent, from February 2020 until today), interest rates on credit cards are still up 37 percent.<\/p>\n The higher interest rate is a vital consideration, because the amount of interest charged on a credit card is a function of both the card\u2019s balance and its interest rate. The combination of more credit card debt and higher interest rates makes it mathematically impossible for financing costs on credit cards relative to incomes to be lower today than before the pandemic, directly contradicting Bernstein\u2019s claim.<\/p>\n And his rhetoric becomes laughable once inflation is considered. Because the buying power of the dollar has declined about 17 percent under Biden, real disposable personal income has declined 8.3 percent.<\/p>\n The higher cost of living means people have less money at the end of the month to pay down their credit cards and other debts.<\/strong><\/p>\n And it\u2019s the growing amount of consumer debt that is sustaining today\u2019s spending levels, another fact of which Bernstein seems blissfully unaware. While he praised the growth in consumer spending in July, he neglected to acknowledge that there was no income growth that month, meaning the extra spending came from a depletion of savings and an expansion of debt.<\/p>\n That\u2019s completely unsustainable, especially in an environment of rising interest rates. What is Bernstein\u2019s answer? Platitudes like: \u201cWe want households to have some breathing room. We want their\u00a0real wages<\/a>\u00a0to keep going up.\u201d<\/p>\n But before real wages can keep going up, they need to start going up.<\/strong>\u00a0Real weekly earnings fell in July, and the August report will show a second consecutive drop. The Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland estimates that real weekly earnings are down 4.9 percent\u00a0since Biden took office<\/a>.<\/p>\n Inflation has outpaced wage growth by such a wide margin under Biden\u00a0that at no time in his presidency have the weekly earnings of the average American worker been able to buy what they could when he was inaugurated.<\/p>\n Thus far, the only \u201cbreathing room\u201d provided to American families by the\u00a0Biden administration<\/a>\u00a0is underwater.<\/p>\n This disconnect between administration narrative and economic reality is not surprising, given that Bernstein is not an economist. His degrees are in music, philosophy, and social work. He doesn\u2019t even seem to understand the statistics published by the\u00a0administration<\/a>, including the ones he boldly quotes in interviews.<\/p>\n With economic advisers like Bernstein, it\u2019s no wonder that\u00a0Bidenomics<\/a>\u00a0has the United States staring down the barrel of another recession.<\/strong><\/p>\n Originally published at\u00a0WashingtonTimes.com<\/a>. Reprinted by permission from\u00a0The Daily Signal<\/a>, a publication of\u00a0The Heritage Foundation<\/a><\/em>.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/assets.zerohedge.com\/s3fs-public\/styles\/inline_image_mobile\/public\/inline-images\/2023-09-19_07-35-32.jpg?itok=0KPRIKkH\")
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