RUTHFULLY YOURS

We already know that Joe Biden has cost Americans an average of $6,000 in paycheck power from the inflation that has come of his billions and trillions in government spending, including his mockingly misnamed “Inflation Reduction Act” of 2022.

While Biden has at various times claimed that inflation comes from Russia, greedy oil companies, Republicans, or chicken factories, and in any case is transitory, if not zero, inflation is something serious economists recognize as a monetary phenomenon.  Inflation, after all, is priced in money, and monetary agencies such as the Federal Reserve print up the cash it takes for all that government spending. The inflation comes from Joe.

But inflation is hitting far more than just pocketbooks and savings accounts — it’s also eating away at Americans’ retirement savings, in their 401(k)s and other retirement accounts.

Economists Stephen Moore and E.J. Antoni decided to calculate just how much in a column for the New York Post.  They did the math:

We’ve just completed an analysis of how the highest inflation rate in almost 40 years has impacted the retirement funds of ordinary Americans. Here is what we found.

Not surprisingly, since President Biden took office, monthly savings have collapsed, falling 83%. (We could never understand how Biden could say with a straight face that Americans are saving more. His “transformation” of the US economy has had just the opposite effect.) Many millions of Americans who are living paycheck to paycheck just don’t have the money after paying the inflated bills to save much.

But to add insult to injury, even what has been already saved and invested by older Americans over past years and even over several decades has been erased from these accounts.

Thanks to the thief of inflation.

Inflation has not only cut the value of stocks, and bonds, for that matter, it has reduced the value of the savings that are still left.

Moore and Antoni write:

Tie it all together and we calculate that since the start of this year, 401(k) plans have suffered $2.1 trillion in losses. The average 401(k) plan had over $135,000 at the start of this year. Today, those assets have shrunk on average to about $101,000.

In other words, the average 401(k) plan is down about $34,000 — more than 25% in less than one year!

That’s about a quarter of their previous value.  Does Biden’s student loan forgiveness program, and all the stimulus checks, make up for that?  Not in the least.  In addition, homeownership is increasingly out of reach as interest rates rise and new potential owners are shut out of the market.

Every last aspect of human existence, from prices at the pump and grocery store to homeownership to education and medical care to travel to the final retirement, has grown increasingly out of reach for average Americans.  Every aspect of living in the U.S. has gotten significantly worse.

For Biden, this is by design, because by Democrat logic, beggars are easier for pols of his kind to please.

It’s not getting better and with Biden and company still denying a problem, let alone coming up with a working solution.  It’s pretty obvious they’re going to keep on doing what they are doing, and things will get worse.

Vote as if your way of living depends on it in November, because with figures like these, it does.