The following is presented as part of The Columbian’s Opinion content, which offers a point of view in order to provoke thought and debate of civic issues. Opinions represent the viewpoint of the author. Unsigned editorials represent the consensus opinion of The Columbian’s editorial board, which operates independently of the news department.
President Joe Biden wants to persuade Americans that the economy is better than they think — and that he deserves credit for turning it around. He’s calling his strategy “Bidenomics,” and it’s already become a central theme of his coming reelection campaign.
“Bidenomics is working,” he said in a June 28 speech in Chicago.
That sales pitch will be an uphill struggle. Most Americans aren’t just skeptical that the economy is recovering, they’re downright pessimistic. A Gallup Poll last month reported that 66 percent think the economy is getting worse, not better. In an AP/NORC survey in May, 64 percent disapproved of the way Biden has handled the economy, including 39 percent of Democrats.
But even though most voters consider it a strike against him, it’s smart politics for Biden to claim ownership of the economy. For one thing, it’s an issue no presidential candidate, especially an incumbent, can avoid.
“You can bet that Donald Trump is going to ask voters: Are you better off now than you were four years ago?” Democratic strategist Doug Sosnik predicted. “Biden has to have an answer to that.”
For another, the facts are slowly rallying to Biden’s side. The economy is growing by about 2 percent a year, job creation remains strong and — most important from a political standpoint — inflation has eased to 4 percent from last year’s peak of 9 percent. After two years in which prices were rising faster than wages, real incomes are slowly growing again.
“Bidenomics in action,” the president crowed recently when the Labor Department reported 209,000 new jobs were created in June.
White House officials have expressed frustration at voters’ failure to notice — let alone celebrate — those upbeat numbers. But the public’s downbeat mood isn’t mystifying.
Inflation is easing, but prices are still stuck at inflation-fueled levels.
“The consumer price index is 16 percent higher than when Biden came to office,” Republican pollster David Winston pointed out.
And while growth appears strong, financial pundits keep warning that a recession could arrive any day now, especially if the Federal Reserve raises interest rates again.
Biden’s bet is that if the economy continues to improve, public opinion will evolve as well — and he wants to get credit when it does. Hence “Bidenomics,” a brassy way to claim authorship of a recovery most voters don’t see yet.
“Good things are happening in the economy, but the average American doesn’t necessarily associate them with the president,” a Biden aide told me. “We need to make sure folks are making a direct link.”
As an economic strategy, Bidenomics is essentially a collection of the industrial policy initiatives the president managed to get through Congress during his first two years in office, focusing on infrastructure, high-tech manufacturing and renewable energy.
As a political strategy, it boils down to job creation. Expect plenty of pictures of Biden and other officials admiring bridges, tunnels and high-tech assembly lines. In South Carolina, the president touted the bridges his grants are rebuilding, and bragged that workers in new semiconductor factories will make as much as $100,000 a year — “and you don’t need a degree!”
Needless to say, Republicans renewed their long-standing accusation that Biden’s spending programs were what fueled inflation in the first place.
But Biden doesn’t need to persuade every voter that his policies have been a triumph. If he can sway most of the Democrats who aren’t happy with his economic stewardship, his reelection campaign will be on firmer ground.
What matters isn’t how Bidenomics looks now, it’s how it looks a year from now. That’s Biden’s gamble. If the economy continues to improve, he will already have told voters why he deserves credit.
If the Fed sends the economy into a recession, he won’t be able to claim those bragging rights — but he’ll be able to argue that he tried.
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