W.H. Council of Economic Advisers Member: Biden Getting ‘Checks in Pockets’ Helped Cause Demand Surge and High Gas Prices

On Tuesday’s broadcast of CNN’s “New Day,” White House Council of Economic Advisers member Jared Bernstein stated that “the supply of oil isn’t enough to meet the demand that’s a result of this really quite strong American economic recovery.” And that “because of the Rescue Plan, the president helping get shots in arms and checks in pockets, we know we’ve pulled this recovery forward very significantly” which is “putting some pressure on the demand side of the economy, well before many forecasters thought that would be the case.”

Bernstein said that the tapping of the Strategic Petroleum Reserve should be seen as “a bridge between the current dynamics, where simply the production, the supply of oil isn’t enough to meet the demand that’s a result of this really quite strong American economic recovery. You know, because of the Rescue Plan, the president helping get shots in arms and checks in pockets, we know we’ve pulled this recovery forward very significantly. We have unemployment down below 5%, 600,000 jobs per month. We have rising wages. We have over 10 million job openings, and this is putting some pressure on the demand side of the economy, well before many forecasters thought that would be the case. And the supply of energy just hasn’t kept up with it. So, when President Biden said, I’m going to use every tool I have to fix that mismatch between excess demand and supply, this is part of that, and it’s going to help bridge us over to a period where prices should normalize on their own.”

Follow Ian Hanchett on Twitter @IanHanchett