Dominic Pino of National Review Online responds to President Biden’s curious take on the American economy.

The economy that exists in Joe Biden’s head is significantly better than the economy in the real world. That’s the major takeaway from the president’s comments to CBS’s Scott Pelley on 60 Minutes. …

Pelley asked Biden about the August inflation report, which put year-over-year inflation at 8.3 percent and month-over-month inflation at 0.1 percent.

BIDEN: Well, first of all, let’s put this in perspective. Inflation rate month-to-month was just up, up just an inch, hardly at all.

PELLEY: You’re not arguing that 8.3 is good news.

BIDEN: No, I’m not saying it is good news. But it was 8.2 or 8.2 before, I mean it’s not, you’re acting to make it sound like all of a sudden, “My God, it went to 8.2 percent.” It’s been –

PELLEY: It’s the highest inflation rate, Mr. President, in 40 years.

BIDEN: I got that. But guess what we are. We’re in a position where for the last several months it hasn’t spiked. It has just barely, it’s been basically even, and in the meantime, we’ve created all these jobs, and prices have gone up, but they’ve been down for energy. …

… Inflation is the top political concern for voters right now, and according to a recent poll, 59 percent of voters who name inflation as their top concern plan to vote Republican in November. “This is a process” is not likely to persuade them out of that choice.

The process of reducing inflation was made more difficult by Biden’s signature on the American Rescue Plan Act in March of last year, which even left-leaning economists warned would contribute to inflation. Not only that, but it didn’t create a single job in all of 2021.

The president is right that inflation hasn’t spiked in the past few months, but not spiking is not the same as declining.