The full Democrat House caucus will reportedly meet Thursday to discuss its economic messaging following inflation hitting a 41-year high and gas prices continually rising, mere months ahead of the midterm elections.
The meeting is scheduled for Thursday, June 16 at 9:00 a.m. Eastern. It will include three “special guests” — Kate Bedingfield, White House Communications Director; Mike Donilon, Senior Advisor to the President; and Jen O’Malley Dillon, White House Deputy Chief of Staff:
Here’s the announcement: pic.twitter.com/lx8O2aWyJv
— Heather Caygle (@heatherscope) June 14, 2022
The scheduled meeting comes days after the latest inflation report, showing that prices rose 8.6 percent in May — reaching a 41-year high:
Inflation hit a four-decade high of 8.557 percent in March and moved down to 8.3 percent in April. Economists had expected inflation to tick down to 8.2 percent in May.
This is the twelfth straight month of inflation above 5 percent.
On Tuesday, the Department of Labor announced that “its Producer Price Index for final demand rose 0.8 percent in May compared with a month earlier,” Breitbart News reported. Producer prices are up 10.8 percent:
That represents an acceleration of monthly price gains from April, when prices rose a downwardly revised 0.4 percent month over month.
Economists had expected an annual rise of 11 percent and a monthly increase of 0.8 percent.
The government said the index was up 10.9 percent year over year in April, downwardly revised from the initial report of 11 percent. Last month, the March figure was revised up from an initial reading of 11.2 percent to 11.5 percent, the worst pace of PPI inflation in decades.
“Joe Biden’s self-made inflation crisis is destroying the nation. He is failing hardworking Americans every single day. The worst part is he has no real plan to fix inflation,” Sen. Rick Scott (R-FL) said in a Tuesday press release, which included examples of astronomical price increases in basic goods:
- Eggs: +184.6%
- Home Heating Oil: +116.8%
- Gasoline: +66.3%
- Wheat: +56.1%
- Milk: +47.3%
The Democrats’ planned meeting also coincides with continually rising gas prices, which reached another record high Tuesday as the national average stands at $5.016 per gallon for regular gas. For further perspective, U.S. gas prices averaged $2.38 on former President Trump’s last full day in office — January 19, 2021.
Poll after poll indicates that economic issues are the top issues on voters’ minds as they head into the 2022 midterm election.
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