On Wednesday, the government put out disappointing inflation statistics that show that inflation has accelerated to four-tenths of a percent last month. But that number seems unrealistically low to me. In the numbers, bureaucrats claimed that gasoline prices only went up 1.7% last month, which would be only five cents per gallon.

On the New York mercantile exchange, gasoline has risen from around $2.10 per gallon in early January to around $2.75 on March 31st; that is up 30% in three months. Crude oil has risen from around $72 at the end of the year, to $83 at the end of March; that is up around 15%. It seems impossible that inflation has stayed at three-tenths to four-tenths per month when energy prices, which affect almost everything, are rising so rapidly.

We are also told that inflation has only gone up 20% in the last four years. That seems impossible when prices for most necessities are rising so rapidly. They say food has risen around 35%, gasoline and diesel are up over 50%, and crude oil, which is used in over 6,000 products, is up over 100%. 

Even if the overall inflation number is 20%, for the poor and middle classes, and especially retired people, the inflation number must be much higher because they spend most of their money on necessities. They have little left over for discretionary spending. That is why they are running up credit card debt, living paycheck-to-paycheck, and falling behind on their bills. Below are a few examples of exploding costs with which people have to deal.

First, from Yahoo Finance:

Why auto insurance costs are rising at the fastest rate in 47 years

New data out on Wednesday from the Bureau of Labor Statistics showed auto insurance costs last month were 22.2% higher than they were a year ago and increased from February’s 20.6% year-over-year gain. March’s rise in insurance costs is the largest gain since December 1976, when prices rose 22.4% over the prior year.

Then this, explaining health insurance increases:

For 2024, across 320 insurers participating in the 50 states and DC, this analysis shows a median proposed premium increase of 6%.

And vehicle maintenance?

According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the cost of car maintenance and repair has gone up 36.2% from January 2019 to January 2024.

The cost of postage has also risen around 50% since 2019. 

It also is important to understand employment statistics since Biden, the media, and other Democrats brag about them all the time. Basically, almost all jobs being supposedly created are part-time jobs. while full-time jobs are stagnant at best. Also government jobs—which just means taxpayer-subsidized employment—are rising rapidly while the government, and therefore the taxpayer, goes deeper into debt. From the Mises Wire:

March Report: The Recession In Full-Time Jobs Is Here

According to a new report from the federal government’s Bureau of Labor Statistics this week, the US economy added 303,000 jobs for the month of March while the unemployment rate fell slightly to 3.8%. In what has become a familiar pantomime, reporters from the legacy media were sure to declare this a ‘blowout jobs report’ while Richmond Fed president Tom Barkin described the report as ‘quite strong.’

This report showed, however, that the jobs economy continues to follow a pattern that began in December of last year: namely, full-time jobs are disappearing and the ‘job growth’ reported so enthusiastically by the media is virtually all part-time jobs. Moreover, nearly a quarter of new payroll jobs are government jobs. If we look more closely at this report, what we really find is that the total number of employed persons has fallen by nearly 400,000 jobs in four months and that 1.8 million full-time jobs have disappeared over the same period.

The Mises report also noted that there is a “sizable gap” between the government’s numbers and household surveys since 2022:

If we look at the total increase in both measures over the past three years, we find a gap has opened and persisted over more than two years. Indeed, as of the March report, the gap is at 3.5 million. The household survey also shows that total employed persons has been virtually unchanged for eight months. Since August 2023, total employed persons has decreased by 34,000. Over the same time period, total ‘jobs’ has increased by more than 1.7 million. Since November, total employed persons has fallen by 400,000.

Over the same eight months that total employed persons has stagnated—and total jobs increased 1.7 million—we find only growth in part-time jobs. Since August 2023, total part-time jobs has increased by 1.4 million. During the same period, full-time jobs fell by more than 1.3 million.

Why would the federal government continue to hire people if they truly cared about deficits? Why not institute a hiring freeze?

Biden continues to tell two huge lies touting his economic policies. He falsely says he inherited a disastrous economy, and that he has created jobs faster than any president—fact check, he actually inherited a rapidly growing economy with exponential job growth.

In 2020, the U.S. had the shortest recession in history, lasting only two months (March and April) when the economy took a hit because of government lockdowns, spurred on by the Chinese-Fauci gain-of-function creation, Covid-19. Shutdowns caused a loss of 20.7 million jobs. In the next eight months, all during Trump’s term, 13.4 million jobs came back, or an average of almost 1.7 million jobs per month. Those results dwarf the job growth of Biden.

Biden falsely claimed yesterday that inflation was soaring when he took office—again fact check, it was 1.4%.

The media should recognize that the reason the public believes that Trump’s economic policies were better is because…they clearly were, no matter how much the media, Biden, and all the other Democrats intentionally mislead otherwise.

Image: Free image, Pixabay license, no attribution required.