But such macro-level success is unlikely to hit home for regular Americans. A family of four now has to spend roughly $2,500 a year more on groceries than when the president took office. House prices have gone up by nearly a quarter.
These acute strains on the household purse have not been offset by earnings growth. Real-terms weekly wages are down 2.1 per cent.
A chorus of experts, pointing to basic economic theory, pinned this on the freshly elected President Biden’s March 2021 $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan, designed to shake off the effects of the pandemic for good.
The combination of this, and the Federal Reserve’s initial reluctance to raise interest rates, wreaked havoc on personal budgets.
The United States Department of Agriculture estimated a typical family – consisting of two adults and two children with “moderate” spending habits – forked out $314 a week on food, or $1,361 a month, in August.
The month of Mr Biden’s inauguration, the same household would have spent just $1,147 a month. That’s an 18.8 per cent increase over his term so far, working out to an extra $2,500 a year – about the cost of a round-the-world trip from New York’s JFK airport.
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Life in America is more expensive than ever.
“Food, rent, gas, back-to-school clothes, prescription medications. After all that, for many families, there’s not much left at the end of the month.”
That’s not a Republican attack line on the Biden administration’s handling of the cost of living crisis – that’s Democratic nominee Kamala Harris on the stump back in August, [promising to turn things around](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/us/comment/2024/05/14/america-national-debt-deficit-biden-spending/).
Joe Biden’s economic record is strong. He is able to boast record job creation and sustained GDP growth (albeit largely thanks to [the near-inevitable pandemic recovery](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2024/06/05/great-american-boom-running-out-steam-mountains-debt/)).
But such macro-level success is unlikely to hit home for regular Americans. A family of four now has to spend roughly $2,500 a year more on groceries than when the president took office. House prices have gone up by nearly a quarter.
These acute strains on the household purse have not been offset by earnings growth. Real-terms weekly wages are down 2.1 per cent.
Ms Harris’s running mate, Tim Walz, recently claimed people “[can’t afford four more years of this](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2024/08/16/america-spending-will-continue-until-the-world-stops-fund/)”, in an apparent gaffe. But the numbers certainly stand up his point.
Spiking oil and gas prices in 2021, which were then exacerbated by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in early 2022, pushed inflation up around the world.
The US was not spared: [the consumer price index](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/us/politics/2024/08/25/kamala-harris-price-gouging-plan-will-never-happen/) peaked at 9.1 per cent in July 2022, according to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). Its rise was notably earlier and faster than in Western peer nations.
A chorus of experts, pointing to basic economic theory, pinned this on the freshly elected President Biden’s March 2021 $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan, designed to shake off the effects of the pandemic for good.
The combination of this, and the Federal Reserve’s initial reluctance to raise interest rates, wreaked havoc on personal budgets.
The United States Department of Agriculture estimated a typical family – consisting of two adults and two children with “moderate” spending habits – forked out $314 a week on food, or $1,361 a month, in August.
The month of Mr Biden’s inauguration, the same household would have spent just $1,147 a month. That’s an 18.8 per cent increase over his term so far, working out to an extra $2,500 a year – about the cost of a round-the-world trip from New York’s JFK airport.
**Read more from The Telegraph:** [https://www.telegraph.co.uk/us/news/2024/10/01/biden-presidency-households-spending-2500-more-groceries/](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/us/news/2024/10/01/biden-presidency-households-spending-2500-more-groceries/)
Every day costs are killing our household.
That’s a tax on top of taxes, especially for things you have no control over like utilities and insurance where you have single or limited choices.
$2500/year?
I’d say we are spending an additional $500/month on the low end.