President Joe Biden wants Americans to think he has created the greatest economy in American history ― better than Reagan, better than Clinton, better than Trump. But the devil is in the details.
He claims to have created 13.4 million jobs since becoming president; however, critics note most of those jobs came from people returning to jobs they had been laid off or furloughed from during the pandemic lockdowns.
“And while Bidenomics has allegedly created some 13.4 million new jobs, this number should be taken with a grain of salt. Most are what David Stockman, one of former President Ronald Reagan’s budget directors, calls ‘born-again jobs.’ That’s because they aren’t actually new — they are simply the product of reopening the economy after the terrible COVID-19 lockdowns.
“Many of the remaining jobs were created by the same inflationary infusion of cash that overheated the economy. This is nothing to brag about,” Mercatus Center economist Veronique De Rugy writes. “A Hoover Institution study of Bidenomics looked at the impact of taxes, regulations and spending. The authors found that ‘in the long run, Biden’s full agenda would reduce full time equivalent employment per person by 3 percent, the capital stock per person by about 15 percent, real GDP per capita by more than 8 percent, and real consumption per household by 7 percent.’”
She continues: “Meanwhile, the failure to reform immigration and address the crisis at the border deprives the labor market and employers of the additional workers they need to produce more.”
Joe Biden Should Worry: Bidenomics Unpopular, Polling Shows
Core inflation, which measures the costs of items such as food and energy, remains high at around 4.1 percent.
“A CNN poll released last week showed that encouraging signs about the economy and inflation have not yet given Biden much of a boost. Roughly half of Americans believe the economy is in a downturn or getting worse, with only 1 in 5 seeing the economy as improving, the poll found,” Washington Post reporter Toluse Olorunnipa writes. “Just over one-third of respondents approved of Biden’s handling of the economy, while nearly two-thirds disapproved. Overall, Biden’s approval numbers have remained relatively low throughout most of his presidency, but the White House publicly dismisses much of the polling.”
‘Credit Card’ Debt Hits $1T
Credit card debt is on the rise with over $1 trillion during the Second Quarter of this year.
“Rising credit card debt and auto loan balances helped to drive overall household debt levels up 1%, to $17.06 trillion for the quarter, the report showed. Overall household debt has spiked by $2.9 trillion since the end of 2019, before the pandemic. The New York Fed’s debt balances are nominal and not adjusted for inflation,” CNN’s Alicia Wallace reports.
She notes that credit card balances will continue to rise as Americans struggle to pay off balances. Bank of America also noted that Americans were tapping into their 401(k)s to pay their bills. The number of Americans doing so increased by 36 percent from the second quarter of 2022.
These increases are coming at a time when interest rates have quickly vaulted to a 22-year high.
When federal student loan repayments begin in October, it will hit Americans particularly hard as they are forced to pay their loans and their other debts, which could put a crunch on spending.
Democrats Acknowledging Reticence About Bidenomics and Joe Biden
Some of the Joe Biden’s allies are recognizing that Bidenomics is having a hard time catching on with voters.
“There’s a disconnect between the data and the way people are feeling,” Sen. Angus King, I-Maine, told Politico. “It takes time for people to sort of absorb the fact that we’re in very good shape,” he said. “That doesn’t mean everything is solved [but] if I were president, I would take great pride in where the economy is right now.”
John Rossomando is a defense and counterterrorism analyst and served as Senior Analyst for Counterterrorism at The Investigative Project on Terrorism for eight years. His work has been featured in numerous publications such as The American Thinker, The National Interest, National Review Online, Daily Wire, Red Alert Politics, CNSNews.com, The Daily Caller, Human Events, Newsmax, The American Spectator, TownHall.com, and Crisis Magazine. He also served as senior managing editor of The Bulletin, a 100,000-circulation daily newspaper in Philadelphia, and received the Pennsylvania Associated Press Managing Editors first-place award for his reporting.
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