President Biden has a new reelection campaign catchphrase: Bidenomics.
“It’s my economic plan in action,” he said at the Philly Shipyard Thursday, “it’s Bidenomics.”
The president came to Philadelphia to mark the start of construction on a ship that will install and repair offshore wind turbines. Biden, standing in a huge steel cutting bay, used it as an example of how his green energy projects can create jobs.
“When I think climate, I think jobs,” Biden told the crowd of union ship makers and local politicians.
Biden also announced that, for the first time in history, the U.S. government will lease space in the Gulf of Mexico to companies to install wind turbines, which generate electricity from wind blowing across the sea.
He went on a brief tour of the shipyard on the hot, muggy afternoon and then delivered a speech that grouped many of his administration’s legislative accomplishments and the projects they fund into that one word: “Bidenomics.”
Bidenomics is, loosely, an inverse of Reaganomics, a term for former President Ronald Reagan’s fiscally conservative, trickle-down economic theory that wealth would flow from the top down.
Biden said Thursday that trickle-down economics “limited the dream to those at the top.”
Bidenomics encompasses Biden-backed legislation and economic policy goals. He uses it to talk about post-pandemic successes and new initiatives that he says will grow the middle class.
It’s also an attempt to wrestle the narrative back from Republicans, who in 2022 blamed Biden for record high inflation, high gas prices, and rising unemployment. The GOP has continued to paint that picture, even as the economic outlook has improved.
“The American Dream — that’s Bidenomics,” Biden said Thursday. “Rooted in what always worked best for this country — investing in America. Investing in Americans. Because when you invest in our people, strengthen the middle class, you see stronger economic growth that benefits everybody.”
Most big elections come down to the economy, and Biden is embracing that.
Biden won his first term in 2020 on a platform of restoring the soul of the nation, blasting “MAGA Republicans,” and tapping into feelings of fear during the pandemic and President Donald Trump’s tenure with a promise of stability.
He’s now trying to thread the needle for voters on what he’s accomplished and how it has — or could — affect them.
He’s hoping that by going around the country emphasizing some of the 35,000 infrastructure projects backed by the Infrastructure Bill, voters will connect new bridges, roads, renewable energy initiatives, and broadband internet access to his administration.
But that message could be a tough sell. Despite passing legislation that has gotten positive marks from bipartisan economists, most polls show less than 34% of Americans approve of his handling of the economy.
Biden localized his message Thursday, touting the collapsed I-95 bridge repair, which was funded in large part by federal dollars, and referencing a $78 million federal grant to make Roosevelt Boulevard safer.
He’s also making a bet that the economic news only gets better by November 2024.
“He’s forecasting that the economy’s going to continue to improve, and that forecast looks increasingly more likely,” said Mark Zandi, chief economist of Moody’s Analytics. “If he embraces it fully, he’ll be the beneficiary of that.”
Republicans criticize Biden’s response to the pandemic and subsequent spending bills as a wasteful government spending spree. They argue many Americans are still hurting from the 40-year-record high inflation the nation experienced a year ago, now down substantially from 9.1% to 2.9%
“Joe Biden bragging about ‘Bidenomics’ while Pennsylvanians are struggling to make ends meet because of it shows that he’s truly clueless about the struggles Americans face every single day,” Pennsylvania GOP chair Lawrence Tabas said Thursday in a statement.
Pennsylvania Treasurer Stacey Garrity, in a call with reporters, noted that 80% of people view the economy negatively.
”It will take Pennsylvania families a long time to recover from ‘Bidenomics,’” Garrity said.
U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, a Trump ally and frequent Biden critic, intended to attack the president on his economic policies but wound up giving free ad content to Biden’s campaign.
In a speech at the conservative Turning Points USA convention, Greene listed Biden’s legislative priorities and compared him to former Presidents Lyndon B. Johnson and Franklin D. Roosevelt.
The Biden campaign set the excerpt to uplifting music and created an ad. It’s the most watched Biden video since his campaign launch in April and the second most watched since he became president.
“I never had an endorsement from her before,” Biden joked Thursday about Greene.
Zandi, of Moody’s, said the economy is looking good overall.
Unemployment is at a low 3.6% nationally, people are working, and wage growth is increasing faster than inflation.
Improvements in inflation and the receding risk of recession have a lot to do with the pandemic fading, along a lessening effect on global economies from the Russia-Ukraine war.
But Biden deserves some credit, too, Zandi said.
Biden’s American Rescue Plan expanded unemployment insurance benefits and the enhanced child tax credit, widely credited with helping low income families. Although many of those benefits have since expired, several studies show the programs prevented poverty rates or unemployment from increasing.
Gas prices have also dropped. The administration tapped the strategic petroleum reserve, a move the Treasury Department estimates saved American drivers 17 to 42 cents per gallon.
The Inflation Reduction Act lowered health care costs, specifically out-of-pocket costs for prescription drugs for seniors on Medicare. And Biden policies have also prompted growth in manufacturing projects and jobs, as well as wages for lower-paid workers.
The Democratic Party this week ahead of Biden’s visit cited 486,800 new jobs in Pennsylvania since the president took office, 2.2 million seniors and other Medicare Part D beneficiaries saving money on prescription drug costs, $8.9 billion in public infrastructure investment, a $270 million investment in large-scale clean power generation, and $1.8 billion in funding for high-speed internet.
Unemployment in the state is 4%, a 20-year low. Unemployment is higher in Philadelphia, but the city’s rate has fallen from more than 12% in 2020 and around 9% in 2021 to 5.9% now.
Philadelphia continues to have one of the highest poverty rates of any big city, with 23% of residents living below the poverty line ($25,750 for a house of four), according to a PEW Charitable Trusts analysis.
Democrats have defended the policies and the strategy behind “Bidenomics,” even as polling continues to show Americans aren’t necessarily feeling the effects.
“We’re still emerging, but we’re ahead of other economies,” U.S. Rep Mary Gay Scanlon, D-Pa., said after Biden’s remarks. “And the investments we’re making in workers and working people really seems to be playing a large part in that, so I think he’s entitled to claim credit for that. Is it perfect? No. Are we continuing to work on it? Absolutely.”
(Staff writer Gillian McGoldrick contributed to this article.)
