New job approval numbers for President Biden are out, and they tell a familiar story: Much of the country doesn’t approve.

Of course, today’s polls say more about our growing political tribalism than about a president’s accomplishments. The last time a resident of the White House re

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election season with an approval rating of 50% or better was 1996, when President Bill Clinton experienced a surge in economic growth.

A lot has changed. What isn’t the platitude that brought Clinton to power the first time around: It’s the economy, stupid.

Biden’s overall job approval rating is 42%. In particular, the 36% figure for his handling of the economy should worry him. That would indicate that the photos taken at Bidenomics are more than just partisan bickering. But why such a harsh judgment on the economy under Biden? It’s a rather odd development, given that a recent Quinnipiac poll found that nearly 60% of Republicans and more than 70% of Democrats describe their current financial situation as good or excellent.

So Biden and his team need to figure out the gap between his administration’s measurable economic successes and how voters feel about them. Clinton’s unofficial campaign slogan on the economy was used to antagonize the incumbent, George HW Bush, while reminding voters of the recession and the near-8% unemployment rate.

Today that rate is 3.5%. How does that work in an attack ad?

It doesn’t. That is not necessary.

Politics is personal. What does a struggling Indiana family care if the US has handled recent inflation better than Western Europe? Who cares striking union workers if a record 13 million jobs were added during Biden’s first term? Labor participation returns to pre

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pandemic levels, and yet Motley Fool reported that the average savings account is lower than a year ago.

When President Trump took office, he had no mandate. Not from the people; he lost the popular vote. And not from the engines of the economy; the 2,584 counties he won in 2016 contributed only 36% to gross domestic product, according to the Brookings Institute.

On the other hand, the counties Biden won in 2020 accounted for 71% of GDP. In fact, half of the wealthiest counties that went for Trump in 2016 switched to Biden in 2020. The reversal by one of them, Maricopa County in Arizona,

helped not only deliver votes to Biden’s only electoral college, but also a few Democratic senators.

Did Biden do enough economically to satisfy the voters who switched sides? Or more to the point, do these voters feel he has done enough?

One of Biden’s strongest traits as a campaigner is his relatability, and it shows clearly in conversations about hardship and loss. But the White House’s communications around its economic policies seem more esoteric than anyone. Recognizing this, the Biden administration is using the one-year anniversary of the $750 billion Inflation Reduction Act to reset the message around its economic policies.

The numbers reflect how things have improved. Can Biden get people to pay attention? See if this new effort will change how voters feel about the economy.

Nearly 65% ​​of counties that benefit from IRA-related investments have above-average poverty rates, according to the Treasury Department. A Bank of America

report

estimates that 86,000 jobs and $132 billion in private investment come from 270 clean energy projects alone.

This all reads like a good thing. It reads as if Biden is doing his job as an elected official. But will it be in Americans’ minds next year when they step into the voting booth? It is his job as a candidate to ensure that.

@LZGranderson