Biden economic advisor admits calling inflation “transitory” was a bad choice

An economic advisor to President Joe Biden explained at the White House press conference on Monday that the administration erred in describing inflation as “transitory” last year.

Jared Bernstein, a member of the White House Council of Economic Advisors, responded to multiple reporters on the topic by explaining that the administration moved away from the word because they found it was too vague to resonate with Americans.

“I think it has to do with the ambiguity about the length of that word - is what it has to do with.” he told the press.

“Some people hear ‘transitory’ and they're going to think weeks and months. Others hear ‘transitory,’ particularly probably economists, we’re used to the broader ups and downs of cycles and think longer periods.”

The advisor admitted that the term “led to a level of ambiguity that wasn't serving the debate very well.”

The White House and its supporters have repeatedly tried to brand the soaring cost of living as temporary since last summer, using terms like “transitory” and “peaking.”

In June 2021, Biden said that the “overwhelming consensus” on inflation was that “it’s going to pop up a little bit and then go back down.”

After the Consumer Price Index jumped 0.9% in July 2021, then the largest increase in 13 years, Biden repeatedly used the word “temporary” to describe inflation, high prices and supply chain disruptions in an address from the White House.

But inflation has continued to set records since, hitting the 40-year high of 9.1% in June. Republicans have used the opportunity to recirculate the July 2021 clip of Biden calling inflation “temporary.”

Bernstein was not willing to comment on whether “transitory” had been “politically problematic” as Biden’s approval rating hits record lows.

“I think that when it comes to, you know, politically problematic - you've heard the president say in recent days that this is - that inflation is unacceptably high, and that bringing it down is the absolute number one domestic priority,” said the economist, pivoting away from the topic.

“And I think that that is all you need to know in terms of what he is dispatching his economics team to do in that front.”