Vice President Joe Biden attended a rally Monday for Iowa Democratic Senate hopeful Bruce Braley and, in talking about the economy, inadvertently slammed the Obama administration as a failure for the middle class.
He praised “55 months of growth and there’s 10 million new jobs,” then he added. “But you know the truth – the middle class is still in trouble, the middle class is still in trouble. You don’t have to know the numbers, you can feel it. You can feel it in your bones.”
“According to all the statistics, all the Economic Policy Institute and all these groups that are outside experts on the economy, the gross domestic product means the nation grew over the last 10 years by over 25 percent, and productivity went up over 30 percent. But middle class wages went up, according to this group, by only $0.14 – $0.14. You know it. You don’t have to know the number, but you know – the middle class have been left behind.”
WATCH:
The Vice President appears to be referring to this EPI study in which the liberal group found:
The weak wage growth over 2000–2007, combined with the wage losses for most workers from 2007 to 2012, mean that between 2000 and 2012, wages were flat or declined for the entire bottom 60 percent of the wage distribution (despite productivity growing by nearly 25 percent over this period).
President Barack Obama and Biden assumed office on Jan. 20, 2009, and had a Democratic controlled House and Senate until Jan. 3, 2011.
[h/t Free Beacon]