Who wants to tell him? Joe Biden responded to the horrid inflation report today by attempting a Jedi mind trick — These are not the prices you are seeing at the grocery store. Biden claimed that the CPI data from June is already out of date because of falling gas prices and that market prices for other commodities have “fallen sharply” in the last two weeks:

BIDEN says CPI data is “out of date” because gas prices have fallen. pic.twitter.com/9ZkJkcvvSS

— Jake Sherman (@JakeSherman) July 13, 2022

First off, gas prices fell in June, but not before spiking upward first, and it didn’t shave 40 cents off the price per gallon either — at least not month-on-month. At the end of May, the EIA average price per gallon was $4.727. It then hit $5.107 in the second week of June before descending back down to $4.979 at the end of June, which is still a month-on-month increase of 5.3%. In the past two weeks it has dropped down to $4.754, which is still slightly above the price at the end of May.

Also, gas prices went up from $3.185 per gallon at the end of June 2021 to the $4.979 price at the end of last month.  That’s a year-on-year increase of 56.3%. Not coincidentally, the BLS report on the consumer price index shows a year-on-year increase in gasoline of 59.9%.

So gas prices (a) have not yet come back down to May levels in either June or July, (b) are way up year-over-year anyway, and (c) are not the only issue when it comes to inflation. Heather Long offers a couple of reminders:

Bottom line: Wages are up 5.1% in past year. Costs are up 9.1%

Gas prices have come down a little lately, which will help. But food, rent and electricity are showing few signs of relief.https://t.co/UVcEpPpXgj via @rachsieg pic.twitter.com/3eNuRxWoDp

— Heather Long (@byHeatherLong) July 13, 2022

Important point from my trucker friends:

Regular gas is down ~40 cents in the past month.
Diesel prices are only down 16 cents.

Almost every good we buy is carried at some point on a (diesel-powered) truck. pic.twitter.com/ALVPYXMxe6

— Heather Long (@byHeatherLong) July 13, 2022

Gas prices are important for inflation, but diesel is even more critical for the reason Long points out. And Biden’s argument there is just as false. The EIA average per-gallon price for diesel at the end of May was $5.539. It finished in June at $5.783, a 4.4% increase month on month and 75.2% increase year on year over June 2021’s average of $3.30 per gallon. Its current price of $5.568 is also still slightly higher than May’s final price, just the same as gas prices for the rest of American consumers.

Biden’s false arguments on gas prices are one thing, but to tell consumers to ignore what’s right in front of their faces is even more absurd. Consumers know that their buying power continues to erode in the inflationary wave that Biden continues to deny. Former Obama economic adviser Jason Furman highlighted that erosion shortly after the report, as did Long again:

The decline in real average hourly earnings at this point is terrible, the fastest pace of decline in 40 years. pic.twitter.com/92rKJFtQRD

— Jason Furman (@jasonfurman) July 13, 2022

Workers are experiencing the biggest decline in years in inflation-adjusted pay.

Wages are up 5.1% in past year. Inflation is up 9.1%.

The Labor Department calculates that workers had a -3.6% inflation-adjusted decline in pay in the past year (that's seasonally adjusted). pic.twitter.com/yM0cd7sHbn

— Heather Long (@byHeatherLong) July 13, 2022

Can we call that the Biden Pay Cut? Biden likes to place pithy labels on economic trends in order to dodge responsibility, such as a Putin Tax Hike. At least “Biden Pay Cut” is accurate, thanks to the inflationary wave his economic and energy policies created.

Just for giggles, let’s look at wheat futures too. Have they gone down recently? Yes, but they’ve bounced upward recently and are still almost 25% higher year-on-year:

Does anyone at the White House actually research claims before publishing them?

Biden continues to prove that he’s out of touch and incompetent. This inflation response is perhaps the most out-of-touch set of claims yet from this administration, and that’s saying something.