Are You Better Off Than You Were Four Christmases Ago? Probably Not
Jill Biden’s creepy video, featuring a troupe of tap dancers showing off the garish Christmas decorations in the White House, prompted one journalist to comment that they are “really going for the Hunger Games as this year’s Christmas theme.”
While they’re prancing around in the capital, out in the districts everyone else is struggling to pay the sky-high cost of this festive season.
Haven’t bought a Christmas tree yet? It will cost you about 10% more than last year, which is on top of the 10% increase the year before, and 10% the year before that.
The American Christmas Tree Association found that 78% of consumers are concerned about inflation this year.
Want to serve ham for family and friends this holiday? Ham prices are up 16% compared with Christmas 2020.
If you’re traveling, you’ll pay 18% more for airfare and 45% more for gasoline than you did in 2020.
Those Christmas lights decorating the house? Your electric bill will be 24% higher. If you’re sending Christmas cards, stationery costs are up 27% under Biden.
At least drowning your sorrows in alcohol is getting less expensive.
Of course, this doesn’t count the fact that Americans have to squeeze this spending out of a 4% decline in real average weekly earnings since Christmas 2020.
Is it any wonder, then, that as the Bidens frolic – while lecturing Americans that all is well – food prices, our ability to pay our bills, housing affordability, gasoline prices and overall inflation, are the top five economic issues in the latest TIPP poll?
Most families this year will probably feel less like costumed tap dancers and more like poor Mrs. Cratchit from “A Christmas Carol.”
Imagine the scene. Bob Cratchit raises his glass after the family’s Christmas dinner to toast President Joe Biden, and says, mimicking White House talking points:
“To Mr. Biden! The Founder of the Feast!”
To which Mrs. Cratchit replies: “The Founder of the Feast indeed! I wish I had him here. I’d give him a piece of my mind to feast upon, and I hope he’d have a good appetite for it.”
— Written by the I&I Editorial Board
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