WASHINGTON: US President Joe Biden, under pressure to tame high inflation, told Americans yesterday that he understands their plight and that he and the US Federal Reserve (Fed) are working to solve what he called his administration’s top domestic priority.
“They’re frustrated,” Biden said of Americans paying more for goods and services across the board. “I don’t blame them.”
As inflation pushes annual consumer prices more than 8% higher than a year ago, the president highlighted his release of oil from strategic petroleum reserves and his pressure on companies with record-high profits to lower prices.
“I want every American to know that I am taking inflation very seriously and it is my top domestic priority,” Biden told reporters.
Fewer than half of US adults – 42% – approve of Biden’s handling of the presidency and they rate the economy as the country’s most important problem, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll this week.
Biden said the Covid-19 pandemic, coupled with supply chain issues and Russia’s war on Ukraine, were to blame for the inflation spike.
Biden and fellow Democrats rushed trillions in new Covid aid and infrastructure spending into the economy last year, fuelling a record rebound last year. Republicans and some economists have said the spending also fuelled inflation.
A March study from the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco estimated US fiscal stimulus added 3 percentage points to current inflation data, but said without the spending the economy might have tipped into deflation, which would have been more difficult to manage.
“We’re in power,” Biden said when asked whether he deserved the blame for high prices. “We control all three branches of government. Well, we don’t really,” he added, lamenting his fellow Democrats’ inability to get other spending bills passed because of their narrow control of Congress.
Biden said the Fed should and will do its job to control it. The US central bank raised interest rates by half a percentage point last week and is expected to roll out additional increases this year.
The president did not announce new policy measures in the speech ahead of new consumer price data today expected to show inflation remained elevated through April.
But he said he was considering eliminating Trump-era tariffs on China as a way to lower prices for goods in the United States. “No decision has been made on it,” he said.
White House press secretary Jen Psaki told reporters later there could be more on tariffs in “coming weeks”.
US petrol prices reached a record high yesterday. The average price at the pump hit US$4.37 (RM19.15) per gallon, according to the American Automobile Association, surpassing the last record of US$4.33 set on March 11.
The average price per gallon a year ago was US$2.97.
“Gasoline (petrol) and diesel (hit) a record high today” in data that has not been adjusted to remove inflation effects, said Andy Lipow, an analyst at Lipow Oil Associates.
The cost of petrol has been following the global rise in crude oil prices as “the world seeks to find alternative supply to Russian oil”, he said. – Reuters, AFP
