Most Americans earned about the same wages last year as they did in 2019 after adjusting for inflation, according to an analysis of Bureau of Labor Statistics data.  Biden/Harris have destroyed the American economy.

     Economists say the Pew Stateline analysis lends credence to the worry that real wages have fallen for most workers over the past four years, despite some relocations to states with lower taxes and a May 2023 rebound of inflation-adjusted wages.  Wages have risen nearly 10% nationwide since March 2021, while consumer prices have soared 17.5%, said Curtis Dubay, chief economist at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, a business lobbying group.

     “Inflation still outpaces wage growth since inflation took off in earnest in March of 2021,” Mr. Dubay said. “So while we’ve had solid, above-inflation wage gains for 18 months now, people feel like they’ve fallen behind because prices have grown more than wages over the last 3½ years.”  Bruce Yandle, a former executive director of the Federal Trade Commission and retired business school dean at Clemson University, blamed “more money being printed than goods and services produced” since the onset of the pandemic.

     “In the period being discussed, politicians starting with [Donald] Trump and going forward with [President] Biden printed money and shipped it out to the American people, and they tried to spend it,” said Mr. Yandle, a fellow at George Mason University’s free market Mercatus Center.  Wages outpaced the 19.3% inflation rate in some states whose growing economies attracted remote workers with high salaries during COVID-19 lockdowns. Wages rose 28.3% in Montana, 28% in New Hampshire, 27.3% in Florida, 27.2% in Washington, 26.7% in Maine, 26.5% in Vermont, 25.7% in Utah, 24.8% in Arizona and 24.6% in West Virginia.

     Wage increases in 29 other states were on par with the inflation rate.  The numbers show hundreds of thousands of people relocated from “high-cost, highly regulated states,” such as New York and California, to more rural enclaves, said Marc Joffe, a policy analyst at the libertarian Cato Institute.  “A lot of these are retirees not competing for jobs or professionals whose jobs moved with them,” said Mr. Joffe, a former finance industry researcher. “So, the new arrivals increase the demand for services and labor while not contributing as much to the supply of labor.”