Joe Biden Makes False Claims About Families Having Less Debt, More Savings Since He Took Office as He Addresses Labor Unions

By Mary Webber First Posted: Jun 15, 2022 04:59 AM EDT

President Joe Biden made a series of false claims as he addressed the largest federation of labor unions on Tuesday, saying families have more savings and less debt since he took office.

"Since I took office, with your help, families are carrying less debt nationwide. They have more savings nationwide," Biden asserted in his speech before the AFL-CIO convention in Philadelphia.

According to Daily Mail, the president also said in his speech that he's working to rebuild the U.S. economy around workers. But despite Biden's pronouncements, data from the Federal Reserve showed that household debt has increased by more than $1.5 trillion since he took office.

The country's credit card debt is also at record highs after jumping almost 20 percent during the month of April to $1.103 trillion. The previous pre-pandemic record was $1.1 trillion.

American savings accounts have also decreased by more than $9,000 over the past year. It was $73,100 in 2021 to $62,086 in 2022, a wealth management company Northwestern Mutual survey showed.

The country's inflation is also at a more than 40-year high. On Tuesday, Biden tried to remind the crowd of the food lines and layoffs during the COVID-19 pandemic that preceded his presidency, contrasting that with the improvements in household balance sheets under his term.

The president also took aim at widespread "lies about reckless spending," which is an apparent reference to the critics of his stimulus package.

"I don't want to hear any more of these lies about reckless spending. We're changing people's lives and because of the fact, this year, we're delivering the biggest drop in the deficit in the history of the United States of America," Biden noted.

Many experts believe that the stimulus package has partially fueled rising inflation. But the president asserted that social spending reduced the deficit by $350 billion and would cut the deficit by up to $1.6 trillion before the year ends.

President Joe Biden's False Claims

Joe Biden's party members have also implied that government spending has been a problem for middle-class families in the U.S. CNN earlier reported that Biden also made a false claim about the U.S. having the fastest-growing economy in the world.

According to figures published by the International Monetary Fund, the U.S. economy grew by 5.7 percent in 2021, but more than 50 other countries had faster growth that year.

In addition, the U.S. economy made a deep dive in the first quarter of 2022 while other countries saw economic growth. Economic experts expect the U.S. economy to resume growing over the rest of the year.

A White House official did not try to defend Biden's claim that the U.S. has the fastest-growing economy in the world. The official noted that the 5.7 growth in the U.S.'s real gross domestic product in 2021 was the fastest for the country since 1984.

U.S. Savings

Northwestern Manual said in its 2022 Planning & Progress Study that Americans had adapted to a new normal in their financial lives more than two years into the pandemic.

The study found that over 60 percent of U.S. adults say the pandemic has been highly disruptive to how they manage their finances. Among them, a significant majority, or 48 percent, say they have been able to adapt, while 13 percent say they have not.

A solid majority, or 60 percent, say they have been able to build up their personal savings over the past two years, and 69 percent of those say they plan to maintain their new saving rate.

That said, year-over-year numbers showed that while savings levels remain high, they have dropped 15 percent from last year. According to the study, the average amount of personal savings in 2021 was $73,000, while it dropped to $62,000 in 2022.

This article is owned by Latin Post.

Written by: Mary Webber

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