President Biden wants to convince Americans that the economy is better than they think and that he deserves credit for turning it around.

He calls his strategy Bidenomics, and it has already become a central theme of his upcoming re-election campaign.

Bidenomics works, doesn’t it?

claimed said[

in a

speech in June 28Chicago

speech

in Chicago June 28]

.

That sales pitch will be an uphill battle. Most Americans are not only skeptical about the economic recovery,

;

they are downright pessimistic. A Gallup poll last month reported that 66% think the economy is getting worse, not better. In

an AP/NORC survey in May

64% disapprove

i.e

of how Biden has handled the economy, including a daunting 39% of Democrats.

But while most voters consider it a strike against him, Biden’s smart policy is to claim ownership of the economy.

For starters, it’s a problem no presidential candidate, especially a sitting president, can avoid.

You can bet Donald Trump is going to ask voters: are you better off now than you were four years ago? That’s what Democratic strategist Doug Sosnik predicted. Biden must have an answer to that.

For another, the facts are slowly accumulating on Biden’s side. The economy is growing at about 2% per year, job creation remains strong

,

and especially from a political point of view, inflation has slowed to 4% from last year’s peak of 9%. After two years in which prices rose faster than wages, real incomes are slowly growing again.

Bidenomics in action, the president crowed

last week recently

when the Labor Department reported 209,000 new jobs

goods

made in June.

White House officials have expressed frustration with voters

failure

to notice, let alone celebrate those happy numbers.

But the gloomy public mood is not so puzzling.

Inflation is declining, but prices remain stuck at inflation-driven levels.

The consumer price index is 16% higher than when Biden took office, Republican pollster David Winston noted.

And while growth seems strong, financial experts continue to warn that a recession could come any day now, especially if the Federal Reserve does

hikes up increases

interest rates

again.

Biden is betting that if the economy continues to improve, public opinion will evolve as well, and he wants to take credit if it does.

Hence Bidenomics, a brutal way to claim authorship of a recovery that most voters are yet to see.

Good things happen in the economy, but the average American doesn’t necessarily associate them with the president, an aide to Biden told me. We need to get people to make a direct link to his economic program.

As an economic strategy, Bidenomics is essentially a collection of the industrial policy initiatives the president was able to push through Congress during his first two years in office, with an emphasis on infrastructure, high-tech manufacturing and renewable energy.

As a political strategy, it boils down to job creation. Between now and Election Day, expect plenty of photos of Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris and other officials admiring bridges, tunnels and high-tech assembly lines.

Last week in South Carolina, the president praised the bridges his grants are rebuilding, boasting that workers in new semiconductor plants will earn as much as $100,000 a year and you don’t need a degree!

But he didn’t have much to say about inflation, other than that

a single sentence

promises it’s still one of my top priorities.

That omission provoked grumbling from some center Democrats.

I would have liked more story on Joe Biden, Inflation Fighter, said Will Marshall, president of the moderate Progressive Policy Institute.

Needless to say, the Republicans renewed their protracted existence

charge accusation

that Biden’s spending programs fueled inflation in the first place.

But Biden doesn’t need to convince every voter that his administration has been a triumph. If he can

mere

rule over most Democrats who are not happy with his economic stewardship, his re-election campaign will be on firmer ground.

It’s not about what Bidenomics looks like now

,;

it’s what it will look like a year from now, when voters make a decision.

That’s Biden’s guess.

If the economy continues to improve, Biden will have already told voters why he deserves some credit.

If the Fed sends the economy into recession, it won’t be able to claim that boast, but it will be able to claim it tried.