A stagflation swamp: Joe Biden is Jimmy Carter 2.0
Last week, U.S. job vacancies hit a record 10.1 million as employers struggled to find help. Nearly half of small-business owners are unable to hire or compete with government welfare. Reliant on federal unemployment benefits and coddled by Democrats for months, millions of workers are choosing not to work.
This is Joe Biden’s America.
The year is 1977. In August, President Jimmy Carter is seven months into his presidency. Inflation has cleared 6%, while the U.S. labor force participation rate is stuck at 62.3%. The New York Times warns of a “stagflation swamp.”
Fast forward to 2021: Seven months into his term, President Joe Biden’s economy is sputtering. Over the last 12 months, wholesale inflation has risen by nearly 8%. Increases in the producer price index are beating expectations. While the U.S. unemployment rate has dropped to 5.4%, economists say that owing to the unusual circumstances, this probably understates true unemployment by as many as 3 points. Labor force participation, a more accurate gauge of the labor market, sits below 62%.
Once again, a Democratic president, buoyed by an increasingly left-wing party apparatus, is discouraging work by forcing Americans to rely on Washington, D.C., rather than the merits of their own labor. Biden and other handout-happy Democrats are inspiring a new generation of leeches and mooches, who no longer need to rely on small-business owners and other hardworking employers to secure financial security and climb the career ladder.
