
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">President Biden praised his economy, but the folks around the kitchen table saw if differently. Now we have President Trump saying his economy is A++++++, but those folks in the kitchen are disagreeing according to the polls.</p>



<p class="wp-block-paragraph">Many see similar situations – with Presidents engaging in hyperbole and the people back home suffering the reality. ; But &#8230; the situations are not the same. ; The people were right in the Biden case and &#8230; shall we say &#8230; ; are not so right in the Trump case. ; And the statistics prove it.</p>



<p class="wp-block-paragraph">Most notably, Biden’s big spending bills were a major reason we hit a record high – 9 percent &#8212; inflation rate during his term. ; At the same time, wages were stagnant. ; That was a serious hit on the family budget.</p>



<p class="wp-block-paragraph">Under Trump, costs have risen approximately 3 percent, just a bit above the Federal Reserve’s healthy 2 percent annual growth rate. ; Not exactly runaway inflation. ; To some extent, Democrats have been able to convince people that a modest “normal” increase in prices is inflation – and is catastrophic. ; They are misrepresenting the fact that prices <strong>always </strong>go up, except in the most severe economic collapses. ; And we have not had one of those since 1929.</p>



<p class="wp-block-paragraph">(<em>Allow me to underscore that last point with personal examples. ; When I graduated from college, I got what was considered a “good executive job “with the phone company. ; I was getting paid $5,500 – a smidgeon over $400 per month. . ; I recall filling up the gas tank of my first car at 29.9 cents per gallon. And a hot dog cost fifty cents.</em></p>



<p class="wp-block-paragraph"><em>In 1969, I bought my first house – a 3-bedroom Georgian – near Chevy Chase Circle in Washington, D.C. for $40,000. ; In the early 1980s, I purchased a second home on the shores of Lake Michigan for $57,000</em></p>



<p class="wp-block-paragraph"><em>According to Zillow, that first house in D.C. is currently valued at $1.3 million. ; I sold the Lake Michigan house about 20 years ago for $1.2 million. ; My most recent gas purchase was $2.89 (down from more than $4.00 under Biden) &#8212; and hot dogs are going at $6.00 and up, often without fries. ; Every senior citizen can tell similar stories of how prices have risen, and we do &#8230; very often.</em></p>



<p class="wp-block-paragraph"><em>At one time, my Medicare Advantage Plan once had a premium of $100 per month. ; Today there is no premium. ; The co-pay on most of my prescription drugs have gone down to zero. ; The visit to my personal care physician has dropped from $35 to zero. Specialists dropped from $75 to $35. I am on a rewards program that gets me a couple hundred bucks for OTC purchases. ; Admittedly, I am not a person who needs extraordinarily expensive medical services and medications – but the cost of my healthcare has actually decreased in recent years.</em></p>



<p class="wp-block-paragraph"><em>Some food costs have gone up in recent times – particularly beef. ; But our Thanksgiving turkey was 79 cents a pound – same as 2024. I recently purchased avocados for 49 cents each – back down to the pre-COVID price. ; By adjusting my shopping, my grocery costs have not gone up appreciably since the end of the Biden inflation.)</em></p>



<p class="wp-block-paragraph">The point is &#8230; the hit on the family budget does not appear to be as bad as Democrats would have us believe. ; The notable exceptions – and they are significant – have been the cost of housing, despite low mortgage rates, and childcare. Young people have a tough time getting into their first home. ; People also get hit hard in the rental market.</p>



<p class="wp-block-paragraph">Unfortunately, Trump tends to counter Democrat hyperbole with hyperbole of his own. ; There are issues in the economy that need to be addressed. ; The economy is strong by all measures, but not the A+++++++ that Trump trumpets. ; And since he is a man with a self-inflicted credibility problem, his claims do not resonate well with the folks back home.</p>



<p class="wp-block-paragraph">What makes the Trump economy better than the Biden economy is not only the lack of a high inflation rate, but the increase in wages that compensate for much of the cost increases. ; Not everyone’s wages have increased, of course – and Social Security’s so-called Cost-Of-Living-Adjustment (COLA) always lags behind the real cost increases.</p>



<p class="wp-block-paragraph">There are a lot of folks suffering serious economic problems, but I would argue that the number is not nearly as high as Democrats suggest. ; Retail sales, alone, suggest that consumers have a lot of money to spend. And ironically, all that money tends to drive up prices. ; We Americans – even the poor &#8212; live better than most people on earth. We should think of the glass as more than half full rather than mostly empty.</p>



<p class="wp-block-paragraph">So, there ‘tis.</p>

It is the economy, stupid. But whose economy?
