The Bidenomics label designates the economic policy of the current administration, characterized primarily by aid measures and federal actions to confront COVID-19. Having just come to power after defeating Trump in a fair and certified election, the new president produced the famous rescue package for the economy. Millions of households then received money and a tax credit for minor children, deposited directly into their pockets to alleviate the economic effects of a pandemic that, moreover, had quite diminished social effects thanks to federal support for vaccines and campaigns to socialize their use among the population.
Second, Bidenomics means investments in infrastructure. Two years ago, a law promoted by the president and with Republican approval was enacted, one of the few cases of bipartisanship in the polarized corridors of Washington DC. The White House called it “a once-in-a-generation investment in American infrastructure and competitiveness.”
From then to date, up to 35,000 projects have been given the green light, including work to “rebuild our roads and bridges, provide clean, safe water, clean energy, expand access to high-speed Internet.” It’s all part of a package with increasing the national minimum wage, strengthening the social safety net, upskilling the workforce, access to affordable health care, and student loan forgiveness.
Regarding the Gross Domestic Product (GDP), from July to September 2022 it grew by 2.6%, a stronger expansion than predicted when many analysts expected a lower percentage. It was a sign that the U.S. economy, one of the most powerful in the world, was entering a post-pandemic recovery phase. During the third quarter of 2023, it was 1.2%. The annual growth rate in this year which is almost over was 4.9%.
Another of the key points of Bidenomics has been unemployment. Under this president, the rate averaged 3.6% de la EAP (2022): the lowest since 1969. It means that the monthly creation of jobs reached an average of 400,000 and that the number of working people recovered the levels before the pandemic.
But seen by the public, the economic policy has its Achilles heel: inflation, which reached its climax in mid-2022. The government did what its economic advisors recommended to try to control it; in this case, implementing successive increases in interest rates by the Federal Reserve.
A summary review of the statistics indicates that in 2022 inflation remained close to its highest level in forty years (8.5%) with the subsequent reduction in household purchasing power. According to estimates, average weekly earnings, adjusted for inflation, have decreased 3.4% since Biden took office. And the real average income decreased by 8.8%.
The topic seems to occupy the entire horizon. That’s why nearly twice as many voters in those famous swing states say Bidenomics is a failure — or detrimental to the economy — by taking the part for the whole. Many Americans, indeed, are dissatisfied with the economy, but perceptions are fueled by distractions caused by the president’s agenda, such as the documents found in his Delaware home, his son Hunter’s problems with drugs and justice, or, more recently, the green light that the House of Representatives gave to the investigation to subject him to an impeachment process.
On the other hand, the above takes place amid a panorama marked by two wars abroad and by a crisis on the southern border that is being negotiated with the Republicans: the point is to tighten the asylum system in exchange for more than 60 billion dollars for Ukraine. The result of this dynamic, to which is added the popular rejection of an elderly man who has just turned 81, aspiring to be re-elected, results in the low levels of presidential approval that are marking the polls, despite the aforementioned and other achievements of Bidenomics. The president’s approval rating is today, according to polls, the lowest of any president since World War II.
A recent analysis sums it up like this:
President Joe Biden enters next year’s election with a perplexing challenge. Just when the American economy is getting stronger, people still feel terrible about it. Pollsters and economists say there has never been a wider gap between the economy’s health and public perception. The divergence could be a decisive factor in whether the Democrat wins a second term next year. But Republicans are taking advantage of the dissatisfaction to criticize Biden. And the White House is less successful in its attempt to highlight economic progress.
In that spirit, White House officials’ discourse has even gone so far as to highlight specific items whose prices have fallen: turkeys for Thanksgiving, eggs, gasoline…, but it does not seem to work as a dam for containing the wave. “Things are getting better and people think they are going to get worse. That is the most dangerous part of all this,” pollster Celinda Lake said not long ago. “Many voters, it seems, do not simply want to see inflation rates fall, but rather an outright drop in prices.” And in that picture, some data are suddenly forgotten.
One of them is that despite the propaganda of being “the jobs president,” Donald Trump had the worst record in this area since the Great Depression, losing almost 3 million jobs during his term. The latest report on the subject showed that last November employers added 199,000 jobs to the market. And inflation, for its part, has gone from a worrying 9.1% to 3.2% in just over a year without causing a recession.
Republicans have argued that voters should trust their instincts about the economy and not statistics. And in that, they have been successful, even though right now a typical American household — if the expression fits — is in a better situation than in 2020, and that wage/job growth has favored the poorest.
“People have really been affected,” said one neighborhood resident. “Things have gone on and off. Everything has happened quickly. It has been disturbing and confusing. We’re just tired.”
The Biden administration and its economic strategists have a margin of maneuver of just one year to deal with this problem and finish cornering it. Otherwise, there could be a transition before January 20, 2024, whoever the GOP nominee is.
Author
Alfredo Prieto
No todo se trata de crecer en PIB o que el estado gaste más en obra pública. Además la inflación no fue más que una redistribucion de riqueza del mundo a hacia EEUU. Su gestión economica es un fracaso y con razón