We’ve been writing for a while now (see here, here, here, and here, for instance) about how real wages have declined for most lower and middle class Americans over the last few years, even as President Bush, and his chorus of false voices, continues to trumpet the amazing technicolor growth of the economy.

Well, you can add a whole new class of workers to the group whose real wages will decline in 2007 — pretty much the entire White House staff, it looks like. The National Journal reports that at the upper end of the White House salary spectrum, assistants to the President — such as Karl Rove — got a pay hike of $2,800 to $168,000 this year, an increase of 1.69%. At the bottom end, “the young people answering phones and responding to the president’s mail … remain stuck at a $30,000 pay floor, which has been the pay basement for at least the past three years”.

In 2007, inflation has been running at an annual rate of more than 2% each month. Hence, real wages in the White House will go down in 2007 at both ends of the spectrum.

And it’s not just 2007. Same story in 2006, too. Upper end salaries increased from $161,000 to $165,200 (2.61%), which failed to keep pace with inflation (3.24%). Lower end salaries stayed stagnant at $30,000.

So almost everyone in the White House has seen their real wages go down 2 years in a row. When the Bush team tells Americans that the Bush economy has brought prosperity to us all, it’s a case of the blind proclaiming to the blind how well they can both see. In theory, at least, both parties then go: “Hallelujah!”