Biden’s White House Hopes You Don’t Read Past The Headlines On Gas Prices

In recent weeks, reports surfaced that the Biden White House was working with media organizations to help re-shape economic coverage. Many conservatives read this as the Democrat-Media Complex engaging in their own form of American Pravda after several news organizations suddenly started touting President Joe Biden’s economy as the “strongest ever.”

Readers following that story may have picked up another part of the media’s alleged key plan to rescue the president’s cratering poll numbers: Rely on nobody reading past the headline.

On Monday morning, White House Chief of Staff Ron Klain tweeted, “Great to see headlines like this around the country.”

Klain linked to a story from WCMH Columbus titled: “Columbus Drivers See Another Drop In Gas Prices.”

Great to see headlines like this around the country:https://t.co/1ptWBhDbXe

— Ronald Klain (@WHCOS) December 13, 2021

Of course, readers who actually read the article would see that while Columbus gas prices “dropped 3.4 cents in the last week, to an average of $3.07 a gallon” and are “20.7 cents lower than a month ago,” Columbus drivers are still paying “$1.07 higher than a year ago” for fuel.

WCMH also noted, “Nationally, the average price of gas has dropped 2.4 cents to $3.32 a gallon.”

Klain’s tweet came as a separate headline from Axios reported: “Worker Pay Isn’t Keeping Up With Inflation.” Unlike the story Klain shared, that headline was truer to the content of the article:

For all the hype that wage growth has received this year, pay isn’t keeping up with price growth. Real earnings, or wage growth less inflation, turned sharply negative the last two months, after eeking out gains over the summer, consumer price data out Friday show.

Why it matters: That’s an erosion of spending power, which is a bummer. But for time being, it takes the edge off worries of a wage-price spiral, which happens when higher wages fuel inflation, which fuels the need for even higher wages — and so on.

On Friday, it was announced that inflation rose 6.8% in November. CNBC reported Monday morning that experts had said that earlier claims by the Federal Reserve and Biden Administration that inflation was “transitory” were some of the worst economic predictions ever:

“The characterization of inflation as transitory is probably the worst inflation call in the history of the Federal Reserve, and it results in a high probability of a policy mistake,” the former Pimco CEO and current Queens’ College president said Sunday on CBS’ “Face the Nation.”

“So, the Fed must quickly, starting this week, regain control of the inflation narrative and regain its own credibility,” he added. “Otherwise, it will become a driver of higher inflation expectations that feed onto themselves.”

All in all, Klain’s attempt to prove the economy is getting better via tweets and out-of-context headlines is likely a futile effort even if Americans don’t read past the headline. Despite signs of a bad economy everywhere — most notably in people’s pockets at the pump and while grocery shopping — the White House believes it can say the economy is great again and again until people believe them while not enacting any policies to actually make the economy better for the American people.

The views expressed in this piece are the author’s own and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.

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