Americans Feel Poorer Because They Are Poorer | Opinion

According to the most recent jobs report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the U.S. economy added more than 250,000 jobs last month, bringing unemployment down to 4.1 percent from 4.2 percent the month before. In addition, the Federal Reserve cut interest rates last month by half a percentage point, giving the stock market a boost. All of this suggests that the economy is on the mend, Bidenomics is working, and the future is bright.

So why doesn't it feel like it?

Many progressives would chalk up the prevailing negative economic mood to poor messaging and flagrant disinformation. Conservative politicians and pundits, they say, keep telling their supporters that Joe Biden and Kamala Harris have failed miserably on the economy, causing average Americans to conclude that the economy is far worse than it really is. If people stopped listening to this propaganda, reviewed the data, and trusted the experts, they would realize their good fortune of being an American worker and consumer in the year 2024.

However, there's more to the data than meets the eye, much of it demonstrating why Americans feel their quality of life has diminished over the past few years.

In general, the headlines for the jobs reports don't distinguish between part- and full-time jobs, public- and private-sector jobs, and American and non-American workers. According to columnist Jeffrey Tucker, most of the surge in jobs has been in part-time, government-created positions held by non-Americans.

Even if this all contributes to a higher GDP, each of these factors take a toll on Americans and their communities. More people are working multiple jobs, indicating that the cost of living has gone up for everyone. I know a number of teachers who have to supplement their income by taking on seasonal retail jobs, driving for Uber, or conducting extra duties during off-hours. Many live far from where they work because they can't afford houses in urban areas and end up commuting for hours each day. Even five years ago, this was rare; now, it's pretty normal.

Moreover, if most of the new jobs are being created at the taxpayer's expense, then the economic "growth" that follows is largely illusory. Government is not a business. It has no profit motive, it cannot produce anything, and its leadership is decided through elections and appointments, not merit and innovation. When it "creates jobs," it's transferring wealth from the more productive members of society to the less productive members. Even worse, today's government routinely fabricates wealth, inflating the currency to maintain its spending, which in turn makes life more expensive for everyone.

Of course, what receives the most attention in the news is the effect of immigration putting downward pressure on wages. No doubt, many employers are delighted to hire low-skilled immigrants, knowing they can have these workers deported if they make trouble and taxpayers will cover the costs of their housing, schooling, health care, and security. Meanwhile, American workers are denounced as unreliable and incompetent because they won't accept low wages and abusive work environments.

Additionally, as Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio) pointed out in his debate with Gov. Tim Walz, more immigrants means higher demand for goods, which leads to rising prices since supply cannot keep up. Consequently, American consumers are competing with immigrants not just for jobs, but for groceries, houses, cars, clothing, and everything else.

Combined, these two issues work together to hinder general productivity and innovation. Why would manufacturers bother to update their assembly lines, improve their products, or reward their best employees when they can make more money for their shareholders by cheaping out on their workers and artificially increasing demand through mass migration? These days, instead of competing with companies in Japan and Germany by creating better goods and high-tech production systems, more American businesses are trying to compete with those in China and Mexico that curtail workers' rights and pay slave wages.

However, no discussion about the economy is complete without mentioning inflation. Besides the price of groceries, prices for home insurance, medical insurance, utilities, and property have all risen dramatically. Citing a new report from the Brownstone Institute, Jeffrey Tucker says "inflation has run twice the rate of government numbers. Instead of losing 20 percent of value over four years, the dollar has lost fully 40 percent of value." And this problem is only going to worsen so long as the Federal Reserve continues to print out dollars with abandon.

So yes, Americans feel poorer—because they are poorer. And the only way out of this predicament is to cut spending, deregulate commerce and industry, and close the border, not print more money, raise taxes, and expand government programs. If the economy is what Americans primarily care about this November, the choice is clear who offers a remedy to the current malaise and who doesn't.

Auguste Meyrat is a high school English teacher in North Texas. He is the founding editor of The Everyman, a senior contributor to The Federalist, and a regular contributor to The American Mind, Crisis Magazine, the American Conservative, and the Acton Institute.

The views expressed in this article are the writer's own.