Commentary: The rising national debt is eroding American wages

In almost every election cycle, politicians toot their own horn when it comes to rising wages, pointing to higher paychecks as proof that the average worker is thriving. But under the Biden administration, millions of Americans—faced with mounting grocery bills, rising rent, and shrinking savings—could see that these higher paychecks did not tell the full story.

While millions of Americans do in fact see their nominal wages rising, for many, their actual standard of living is falling. The fault lies in the explosive growth of the national debt and the rampant inflation it has helped cause.

Deficits, run up through the unconstrained spending of Congress, continuously add to this pile of debt, which is ultimately the primary driver of inflation-adjusted, or real wage decreases. Debt and de