America’s tough middle-class citizens, long the well from which the country has drawn its strength, are being forgotten by Joe Biden and Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen. At Fox News, Dr. Kevin Roberts and E.J. Antoni explain how Yellen’s policies (both at the Treasury Department and the Federal Reserve) have hurt America’s forgotten men and women. They write:
Few people have done more to destroy the American middle class than Janet Yellen. Both in her former capacity as Federal Reserve chair and now as secretary of the Treasury, she has been woefully disconnected from everyday Americans and their current financial plight.
This arrogant detachment allowed her to recently declare that she sees no sign of a recession. Meanwhile, half of Americans feel like we’re already in one. That’s because their family finances have been devastated by the policies Yellen has helped to implement over the last 20 years, while she and her fellow elites have done quite well, being immune from the ramifications of their own actions.
The proof is in the numbers: While the top 20% of households still have about $500 billion of pandemic-era excess savings, everyone else has run out of money. The bottom 20% of households have not only depleted their excess savings, but also their savings that existed before the pandemic. Now, many American homes are falling into debt.
Credit card debt in particular has exploded over the last three years, hitting $1 trillion for the first time as over 60% of families live paycheck to paycheck and accumulate debt to make ends meet. Worre still, this is happening as credit card interest rates hit record highs – burying families under financing charges that are growing faster than many can afford to pay.
All this is a consequence of 40-year-high inflation, brought on by the government’s spending, borrowing and printing too much money. Yellen played a key role in all three steps, both through advocacy and actual implementation.
During the Obama administration, Yellen had no problem participating in this downward spiral of federal finance. As president of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Fransisco, vice chair of the Federal Reserve Board of Governors, and then chair of the Federal Reserve, she advocated for artificially low interest rates and excessive government spending.
And despite speaking up during the Trump administration about the unsustainability of government spending, the first second she was Treasury secretary in the Biden administration and had a public platform, she changed her tune and again advocated for unprecedentedly large federal budgets.
Action Line: America was built by the forgotten men and women of its middle class. Joe Biden and Janet Yellen shouldn’t be allowed to make them victims of radical progressive policy. Click here to subscribe to my free monthly Survive & Thrive letter.
E.J. Smith - Your Survival Guy
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