In an interview with CNN this week, Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders claimed that "real wages," which are adjusted for inflation, aren’t rising.
“Do you know what the increase in real wages for the average American worker was last year? Zero," Sanders claimed.
When later asked to back up that statement, Sanders’ press office cited a survey from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. But FactCheck.org did a little digging and found that these statistics were outdated, and that the actual rate of "real wage" increase was 0.1% over a 12-month period.
But that’s just the long term. Since President Trump took office in January of 2017, average weekly pay in the U.S. has climbed 1.4 percent. This is largely because full-time employees are cashing in more overtime and part-time employees are finding more work.
But Bernie’s probably right. I’m sure none of that has to do with the 2.5 million jobs created under President Trump’s administration, or our record low unemployment.
Sanders went on to bash Trump for his work on the economy by comparing unemployment rates to countries like the United Kingdom and Mexico, pretending like they’re much better off.
But this isn't true. Mexico’s unemployment rate hovers close to the United States', but the average Mexican worker's salary is so measly, it's actually caught the attention of human rights groups. Meanwhile, the UK's unemployment rate is slightly higher than ours -- all while Sanders is busy ignoring the fact that U.S. unemployment is at its lowest point in 18 years and is still steadily decreasing.
But no, I’m sure Bernie’s socialist economic plans would work much better -- just like they have in Venezuela.