by Steve Cortes
Have you left the grocery store lately, appalled at the price you paid for food?
If so, you are hardly alone.
In fact, such anxiety is widespread and based on the real-world fallout of Biden’s inflation and the punishing kitchen table ramifications. On this topic, my advocacy group, the League of American Workers, has polled the battleground states that will decide the November national elections. Our surveys consistently find that food prices are the number one inflation concern of citizens.
For example, in our latest polling from the key swing state of Georgia, food prices were cited by 49% of likely Georgia voters as either their number one or number two top concern regarding the economy and inflation. This anxiety about food prices crossed party and ideological lines, as well. For instance, it was cited as the number one economic concern among Biden 2020 voters as well. Specifically, among those self-identified Democrat voters, 45% expressed food prices as their top concern.
So, even as media mavens stretch to try to paint the Biden economy as healthy, regular salt-of-the-earth Americans live a different reality: one where affording the necessities of life becomes a grind. Food prices overall have vaulted 20% higher since Biden took office.
Looking at the staples items Americans buy reveals that the pain is even more intense for many common purchases. For instance, boneless chicken breast now averages $4.08/pound nationally.
But when Biden took office, the average price was $3.26/pound, so the total increase of over 80 cents per pound represents a whopping 25% increase. Or take ground coffee, which now costs $6.08/pound nationally. When Biden took office, coffee was $4.59/pound, so that extra $1.50 per pound of java equates to a staggering 32% increase in just three years.
With those kinds of piece spikes, no wonder Georgia voters wholesale reject Biden’s economic agenda. In fact, regarding the term “Bidenomics,” only 7% of Georgia voters have a “very favorable” opinion of the term. In contrast, five times that many, 35%, report a “very unfavorable” view of so-called Bidenomics.
Those of us working to defeat Biden, and return America to prosperity, should actually thank the White House and the complicit media for embracing that awful term. The mere mention of Bidenomics makes sensible Americans feel regret, because the economic pain is real.
The disconnected media charlatans live in a bubble world where everything is fine for the credentialed ruling class because the stock market is rallying. Hence, elite corporate media platforms like Axios have the temerity to run headlines like this one: “Inflation Has Evaporated and the US Economy is Booming.” For real, Axios? Do these writers and NY/DC television talkers ever get out into the heart of America? Are they asking working-class families in Georgia about financial stress?
Those media elites are surely not speaking to food banks across America, because free food charities overwhelmingly report that need skyrockets. In Georgia, for instance, the Atlanta Community Food Bank reports that demand for services is “up 40% over the last 6 months.” Further south in rural Georgia, an Albany food bank relayed to local news WALB Channel 10 that they experienced “the biggest food shortage in 40 years” as demand spiked for free food.
Perhaps even more depressing, a study from the University of Georgia found that 1 in 8 military families visited a food bank in the last year. Georgia boasts a huge active and retired military population, with 12 bases in the Peach State and more than 63,000 active-duty troops.
What a tragedy that any military family would be compelled to seek free food, out of necessity. But this brutal reality flows directly from Biden’s inflation and the abject failures of Bidenomics for working-class Americans, including far too many brave military households.
We can do better. Americans should not be subjected to this level of stress and want. Bidenomics crushed budgets and saps spirits. It is high time for a better way, come November.
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Steve Cortes is former senior advisor to President Trump, former commentator for Fox News and CNN, and president of the League of American Workers, a populist right pro-laborer advocacy group.
