It seems as if The Washington Post has dropped its facade somewhat about how star-spangled fantastic the Biden economy supposedly was, but only now that President Donald Trump is in office. Coincidence? We think not!
The February 2 print edition of The Post had a pretty revealing headline by reporters Lauren Kaori Gurley, Federica Cocco and Andrew Ackerman buried on the front page of the “Business” section: “More Americans are taking second jobs to pay bills.” Quite a 180-degree turnaround from The Post’s asinine July 2023 claim in the middle of the Bidenomics-induced inflation crisis that “Americans are still better off, with more in the bank than before the pandemic.” Now, The Post seems to have flipped to some degree by admitting that “Late last year, the share of U.S. workers with more than one job hit the highest level since 2019, previously last reached during the Great Recession.”
Specifically, wrote The Post, “A growing number of Americans have taken second jobs and side hustles, spurred partly by years of rapidly rising prices that have gnawed away at household incomes.” So much for Post propagandist Heather Long’s desperate pre-Election Day spin that “the data is clear: Americans are better off economically than they were four years ago.” Oof.
But, of course, The Post couldn’t make it too obvious that its non-stop Bidenomics cheerleading was a pile of hogwash. In effect, it tried to spin its reporting once again that people taking multiple jobs could potentially be a good sign of a strong labor market:
The trend is also the result of a strong labor market that has made job opportunities more plentiful for people seeking to boost their incomes through gig work or earn money off their hobbies.
The Post turned to Center for Economic Policy and Research senior economist Dean Baker, who obfuscated that “‘It’s pro-cyclical, meaning that you increase the number of multiple-job holders during good times.’” But as Heritage Foundation economist EJ Antoni retorted in comments to MRC Business, “The idea that the multiple job holder boom is pro-cyclical right now doesn’t make any sense if you look at the data comprehensively.”
But that’s not all. The Post still had the nerve to insist that “workers are better off, by several measures, than they were in 2019, another strong period for the labor market. Job creation last year outpaced 2019, as did the share of multiple-job holders in the labor market.” The rag just can’t help itself in refusing to admit that it was wrong. Antoni, who’s been sounding the alarm on the job data indications that Americans were taking multiple jobs to make ends meet for months, broke down for MRC Business why The Post spinning itself silly to downplay the severity of its own story was nothing short of ridiculous:
[W]e would not be hemorrhaging full-time jobs if this was pro-cyclical. We would not be seeing fewer native-born Americans employed if this was pro-cyclical. People are getting extra jobs because they can’t make ends meet or because that’s all they can find in terms of work.
The data, as Antoni noted, blows up The Post’s “muh, but the jobs market” spin.
On another note, a new Statista study found that the “largest blemish” on Biden’s legacy was that “Wages Haven't Kept Up With Inflation.” Oh but “workers are better off,” right? Statista’s research found that wages have actually decreased under Biden, further skewering The Post’s attempt at twisting economic reality into an Auntie Anne’s pretzel:
[A]djusted for price increases, people went from $29.93 an hour to $29.49 an hour during the Biden years. Considering that these are average earnings, it’s fair to assume that many people suffered considerably larger and actually noticeable declines in real wages, leading to the widespread frustration with the Biden economy.
Perhaps economic hardship is much more of an accurate explanation for why people are taking multiple jobs than everything supposedly being peaches and cream, eh Washington Post? But what more can be expected from a leftist newspaper that has devolved into having the information value of bird-cage liner?
