president s presidency and something he ran on is going to be the pandemic and covid. and he spoke about personal responsibility when asked about individuals mask use wearing at the super bowl. take a listen here to his answer. if you re exercising personal freedom puts someone else in jeopardy, their health in jeopardy, i don t consider that being very dealing with freedom. it s about moving in the direction you know is likely to diminish the prospects that this virus continues to spread. we know we have so many more tools at our disposal to prevent death and prevent serious illness, and i just think they should be careful. and if they re not careful for themselves, at least think of their children. think of their families. reporter: and so that statement from the president, think of your families, be careful. it s been really a through line this year plus that he has been in office. so, a little bit of news here on
reporter: well, the rewards are a couple. first of all, rising wages across the board over two years, and particularly if you look at the bottom. this hot labor market means that so many people who have not had any bargaining power in the american economy for decades all of a sudden have some. now, a by-product of that is inflation along with other aspects of the pandemic, supply chain problems that have complicated the economic picture. but between the fiscal relief that both administrations, both parties voted for the checks that were sent out, and the increases people have gotten in wages, people are better off, but nobody feels better off. that s one of the tragedies of the pandemic, people are in such a bad mood, they re so fed up. they think everything or it feels like everything is bad.
americans feel lousy about the economy, but it turns out most of the country has actually come out ahead financially during the pandemic. that s right. it s the covid economy contradiction. inflation gets all the headlines, all the blame at 7.5% annual inflation. it s the highest in nearly 40 years, but as bad as that sounds, it is directly related to good news. fastest economic growth in four decades and a jobless rate that s just 4%. since the start of the pandemic, americans disposable income has increased more than 5% after inflation. let s bring in cnn white house correspondent john harwood. john, this terrific analysis that you published, you write this. even those who fault president biden s policies for exacerbating inflation, they acknowledge that right now the pandemic economy continues to offer large under appreciated rewards. what are those rewards?
who are green and ecologically minded. there wasn t a tie back to the company itself. it just sort of it was a head scratcher. another one you say missed, this budweiser ad. listen. puppies, clydesdales, what went wrong here? it s interesting, if you remember back in 2014, 2015, budweiser had a pair of ads with the puppy. america loved those ads. those were solid gold in terms of advertising. what i think is really interesting now maybe because the horse got hurt, by i do think a lot has happened since 2015. we had the trump presidency, the global pandemic. i wonder if that broad appeal to, you know, small town america, traditional values, i
it s i it s fair to say you may need somebody else. we ll see if 78-year-old joe biden, the oldest president we ve ever had, if he is in health and a frame of mind he wants to run for another term, right now, we talk about the covid pandemic putting americans in a bad mood. democrats are in a bad mood because things have been politically very, very difficult for them. yeah. well, you know what, there s still a lot of time left. we re focused on 2024. we still have midterms to go. there is a lot to happen. john, thank you as always. appreciate you getting up on a monday. you bet. all right. now to this. how much does 30 seconds cost? well, $7 million if you advertised during the super bowl. boy, if it was delivered with uber eats, does that mean i can eats it? oh, no, oh, no.