‘Recession and a Pay Cut’: GOP Blasts Slowing Job Growth, Sub-Zero Real Wages Under Biden

The GOP and the Republican National Committee (RNC) have sharply criticized the Biden administration for the drop in American workers’ real wages and the lackluster job creation numbers revealed in Friday’s closely-watched non-farm payrolls report, which showed September’s job growth to be the slowest all year.

Labor Department data released on Oct. 7 showed that American employers added 263,000 jobs in September, the lowest number since January, when the economy added 233,000 positions.

“Today’s jobs report showed job creation slowing for the second month in a row. In fact, this was the fewest number of jobs created this year. But what’s not slowing down? Inflation,” said the RNC Rapid Response Director Tommy Pigott in a statement.

Inflation, as measured by the headline Consumer Price Index (CPI) hit a recent peak of 9 percent year-over-year in June, before edging down to 8.5 percent in July and 8.3 percent in August.

Core CPI, which strips out food and energy and is seen as a measure of underlying inflation, hit a recent peak of 6.4 percent in March. It fell steadily to 5.9 percent in July before picking up again to 6.3 percent in August, suggesting inflationary pressures were again building.

Besides putting a cost-of-living squeeze on American households that hurts lower-income earners the most, inflation has also far outpaced nominal wage gains for the average worker, effectively giving them a pay cut.

American Workers ‘Really Struggling’

A recent report from the Dallas Fed showed that more than half of U.S. workers over the past year saw their real wages—which are adjusted for inflation—fall below zero. For the 53.4 percent of the American workforce whose wages were outpaced by inflation, the median wage decline was 8.6 percent.

Another stark statistic on Americans’ real wages was recently shared by San Francisco Federal Reserve chief Mary Daly, who