Worst of Both Worlds: U.S. Economic Growth Slows as Inflation Rates Rise

Today, the Commerce Department released a snapshot of its growth report for the first quarter. The country’s gross domestic product (GDP) grew by just 1.6 percent, its slowest pace in nearly two years. Further, inflation rates have also risen dramatically. Many economists are describing this as “the worst of both worlds.”

Economists polled by Reuters “had forecast GDP rising at a 2.4 percent.” As detailed by Reuters, the concerning numbers could be evidence of worse to come:

Consumer spending grew at a still-solid 2.5% rate, slowing from the 3.3% growth pace rate notched in the fourth quarter.

Economists worry that lower-income households have depleted their pandemic savings and are largely relying on debt to fund purchases. Recent data and comments from bank executives indicated that lower-income borrowers were increasingly struggling to keep up with their loan payments.

Since President Biden took office, prices have risen by 17.4 percent, accounting for a 4 percent decline in real wages and benefits. American families are spending $709 more per month than they did two years ago. Americans’ credit card debt recently hit a record $1 trillion, up from $770 billion when Biden took office.

Despite these dire outlooks, the Biden Administration coined the term “Bidenomics” in order to tout “decreasing inflation” and his “strengthening of the middle class.” This is particularly ironic, as inflation has never dropped under Biden. Really, its growth rapidly increased and then marginally slowed down.

Just today, despite evidence to the contrary, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said the economy was performing very well:

I still see in the underlying core drivers of economic activity, considerable strength. So I think that the U.S. economy continues to perform very, very well.

Evidently, the Biden Administration is still urging Americans to ignore reality.

This is not surprising, as the Administration is to blame for these economic conditions.

During his time in office, President Biden has instituted countless, burdensome regulations, stunted energy projects, passed hundreds of billions of dollars in tax hikes, spent trillions in reckless spending, forgiven billions of dollars worth of student loans, and more.

Still, Biden is pushing for more, radical tax hikes. In his most recent budget, he proposed numerous tax increases, including a top capital gains and dividends tax rate of 44.6 percent, the elimination of President Trump’s Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, a higher corporate tax rate, a small business tax rate hike to 39.6 percent, an unconstitutional wealth tax on unrealized gains, a quadrupled tax on stock buybacks, a $37 billion tax on American energy, and many more.

As conservatives have warned time and time again, the result of these policies are, inevitably, slowed economic growth and high inflation.

The Biden Administration and congressional Democrats have long been willing to sacrifice Americans’ financial security in order to pass their Leftist agenda. It is imperative that lawmakers and Americans continue to push back.