DFL Chair spreads misinformation about the economy

DFL Chair Ken Martin tweeted today:

He appears to be quoting an article by Robert J. Shapiro in the Washington Monthly which states:

Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) data tells us that, under Biden, the total wage and salary income of Americans increased from $9,860 billion in January 2021 to $11,302 billion in August 2022. That comes to a 14.6 percent gain before inflation. Of course, the number of people earning wages and salaries increased sharply over those 21 months. Taking account of that rising employment, we found that Americans’ average wage and salary income rose from $68,943 to $73,988. That’s an increase of $5,045 per working person, or 7.3 percent.

Let us take those numbers as given. They do not, as Shapiro makes clear, account for inflation. If we do that, we find that Americans’ average wage and salary income actually fell from January 2021 to August 2022 by $3,572.

Perhaps it would be ‘unparliamentary’ to call Mr. Martin’s tweet a lie, but it is certainly gross distortion of the facts meant to cloud the economic reality facing millions of Americans. But, when Mr. Martin doubles down and tweets this…

…it is time for the Twitter fact checkers to step in.