That 1789 Feel

WashEx: White House thinks inflation and supply-chain woes are 'high class problems'

White House chief of staff Ron Klain endorsed former Obama administration economist Jason Furman's claim that the country's inflation, supply chain, and other economic problems only affect a small part of the U.S. population.

Furman, the chairman of former President Barack Obama's Council of Economic Advisers and an economics professor at Harvard University, tweeted Wednesday night that "most of the economic problems we're facing ... are high class problems."

...The White House has spent months downplaying concerning inflation signals, and on Wednesday, White House press secretary Jen Psaki suggested that the 5.4% Consumer Price Index increase for September 2021, the highest mark in 13 years, actually showed inflation was decreasing.

"We've seen a decrease over the course of time," she told reporters in her Wednesday briefing. "Over the second and third quarter of this year, monthly inflation increases have actually decelerated."