In his first State of the Union address since Democrats lost control of the House, Joe Biden celebrated recent economic gains – especially declining inflation and soaring job growth – while taking a bow for legislative victories that will curb prescription drug prices, expand health benefits for veterans, slow climate change and rebuild the nation’s infrastructure.
Biden’s speech reminded me of how good a president he has been, especially given what he inherited from the former guy, who made a fetish out of dividing and angering Americans while accomplishing nothing except giving a giant tax cut to big corporations and the rich.
Biden has steadied the nation. He has brought competent people into government. He has enacted important legislation. He has fortified America’s alliances against despots like Putin. He has strengthened American democracy.
All of which raises a troubling paradox. Only 42% of Americans approve of Biden’s presidency – barely above the 41% at his last State of the Union address, and a lower percentage at this point than any president in 75 years of polling except for Trump and Reagan (who at this point was hobbled by a deep recession).
And despite Biden’s significant achievements, fully 62% think he has accomplished “not very much” or “little or nothing”.
Even on his signature initiatives – from improving the country’s infrastructure to making electric vehicles more affordable to lowering prescription drug costs to creating jobs – majorities believe he has made no progress.
And although jobs are being created at an almost unprecedented rate, unemployment is at its lowest since 1969, and inflation is dropping, Americans are deeply pessimistic about the economy.
Why the wide discrepancy between what Biden is achieving and what Americans think about him?
It’s easy to blame faulty polling. Opinion polls are notoriously inaccurate, as America experienced in the last two presidential elections and during the 2022 midterms.
Yet Biden’s has consistently low ratings across almost all opinion polls. And even if the polls systematically underestimate his popularity, he is polling no better than Trump did at this point in Trump’s presidency, which itself suggests a remarkable degree of public hostility.
The media is often mentioned as another reason for Biden’s low public ratings.
To be sure, Fox News and other rightwing outlets continue to minimize Biden’s achievements and exaggerate his inadequacies, and to suggest his involvement in all manner of scurrilous activities.
The mainstream media is not a whole lot better. The New York Times, Washington Post, and major television networks are guilty of “two-sides”-ism – attempting to draw an equivalence between Republicans and Democrats at a time when a large swath of the Republican party continues to align itself with Trump and Trump’s attack on American democracy.
This has made it difficult for the news-consuming public to appreciate how much Biden has got done and to credit him for achieving legislative victories with the smallest majorities and most extreme Republicans in living memory.
That said, the media alone can’t account for Biden’s low ratings. Only a small fraction of the public is exposed to Fox News or to the New York Times or the Washington Post.
A deeper reason Biden is not doing better with the public is the deeply cynical and angry divide Trump has spawned in America. Even if George Washington were president today, a large percentage of the public would probably despise him.
Social media, meanwhile, has become a cauldron of ever more extremist rage. Under Elon Musk, Twitter is less a “public square” than a hellhole of hatefulness. No national leader is immune to such relentless battering.
But perhaps the most important factor behind Biden’s low public ratings are the continuing crises most Americans find themselves in.
About two-thirds of Americans are living paycheck to paycheck. Almost none has job security. Most pandemic supports have terminated.
Although jobs are plentiful, wages have not kept up with inflation. When the median wage is adjusted for these price increases, the purchasing power of the typical American continues to drop.
And while Covid is receding, long Covid is taking a devastating toll. Fentanyl and related drug poisonings continue to rise.
Joe Biden and his administration have made important progress. Their legislative victories are crucial. The American Rescue Act of 2021 helped millions survive the pandemic.
But Biden’s major initiatives on infrastructure, the climate crisis and semiconductors are only starting to be implemented.
Most Americans are still hurting. Hopefully for Biden and for America, the hurt won’t be nearly as bad by the fall of 2024.
Robert Reich, a former US secretary of labor, is professor of public policy at the University of California, Berkeley, and the author of Saving Capitalism: For the Many, Not the Few and The Common Good. His new book, The System: Who Rigged It, How We Fix It, is out now. He is a Guardian US columnist. His newsletter is at robertreich.substack.com
