(Bloomberg) -- US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent deflected concerns about high costs under President Donald Trump, saying the administration had inherited elevated price levels and that its policies would generate real income gains for American workers.
"We inherited an affordability crisis," Bessent said on MSNBC Tuesday, adding that inflation was the worst in 40 or 50 years under President Joe Biden. "We have slowed the price increases down, and they are going to continue to slow down."
Bessent spoke a week after Democrats won several key elections by zeroing in concerns over the cost of living, including housing, groceries, utilities and health care. Trump himself has rebuffed such concerns, telling reporters last week "I don't want to hear about the affordability" because prices are "much less."
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The Treasury chief told MSNBC that "real working class wages will go up, and that will address the affordability issue." He also pointed to Trump's campaign to bring manufacturing back to the US, which he said would produce "substantial job growth" in the coming months and years.
Bessent also criticized reporting that he said minimized the decline in mortgage rates. "The single biggest component of buying a new home," had undergone what he characterized as a "gigantic drop" since Trump's inauguration.
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As for utilities, Bessent said that "a lot of the home heating costs are actually driven by states." He asserted that New Jersey had high energy costs because of policies adopted by the outgoing Democratic Governor Phil Murphy. Representative Mikie Sherrill, another Democrat, won the Garden State's gubernatorial election last week.
Costs in New York State could be brought down if it put in natural gas pipelines, Bessent said. "So part of it's a choice," he said about utility costs.
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