Trump Fed pick: Biggest issue facing economy is decline in male earnings

Stephen Moore, President Trump’s embattled pick for the Federal Reserve Board, said Tuesday that the biggest issue facing the economy is a decline in male earnings.

Moore was questioned on CNBC’s “Squawk Box” about a piece he wrote for National Review in the early 2000s in which he worried about a society where women earned more than men.

{mosads}“The biggest problem I see in the economy over the last 25 years is what has happened to male earnings, for black males and white males as well,” Moore said Tuesday, according to CNBC. “They’ve been declining. That is, I think, a big problem.”

“I want everybody’s wages to rise, of course. People are talking about women’s earnings. They’ve risen,” he added.

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, real median weekly earnings for men have risen about 2.1 percent since 2010. Women’s real earnings have gone up 3.9 percent during the same period.

“The problem actually has been the steady decline in male earnings, and I think we should pay attention to that, because I think that has very negative consequences for the economy and for society,” Moore added.

Moore’s writing for the National Review has come under scrutiny since CNN’s KFile last month resurfaced columns in which Trump’s pick suggested women should be banned from men’s collegiate basketball.

“Here’s the rule change I propose: No more women refs, no women announcers, no women beer vendors, no women anything,” he wrote in March 2002, a stance he defended in several other columns.

Moore said Sunday on ABC News’s “This Week” that he was “embarrassed” by some of the things he had written but called himself the victim of a “smear campaign” and “character assassination” by people who do not want to see him on the Fed board.

The White House on Monday said that staff is “reviewing” Moore’s comments, but are still behind the nominee.