Bidenomics just celebrated its first birthday, and less than half of the country has celebrated it. The president hopes this will change by the second anniversary of the policy in August next year, just weeks before the 2024 election.

If more Americans aren’t in a celebratory mood by then, neither will the Democrats be on election night. Yet voters’ minds are changing as so many of them think this good economy is actually bad and getting worse! is proving more difficult for President Biden than changing the $27 trillion economy itself. And the Republicans, of course, aren’t helping.

It was August 2022 when Biden and a then Democratic-controlled Congress nailed down the final pillars of his signature programs: the absurdly named but impactful Inflation Reduction Act to promote clean energy investment and reduce healthcare and prescription drug costs, partially funded through a minimum corporate tax and the CHIPS and Science Act, to revitalize the US semiconductor industry and weaken US dependence on foreign countries.

These laws, along with the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act of 2021, form a national industrial policy that is already bearing fruit and challenging foreign competitors. In April, the Financial Times reported that the policy was “starting to bear fruit” and identified 75 large-scale semiconductor and clean energy manufacturing projects emerging from Biden-induced transformational change. Commercial Investments in these sectors were 20 times greater in the past year than in 2019, the report said.

More than 13 million jobs have been established since Biden took office, for an increase of 3 million from the pre-pandemic total.

Job growth is greater than at any time in more than fifty years. Wages have increased. The recovery from the US COVID-19 crisis is the strongest recovery among the world’s developed countries.

An acceleration of economic growth in the second quarter allayed fears of a recession. In July, Morgan Stanley blamed Bidenomics and the large-scale infrastructure boom for its decision to make a significant upward revision to its GDP forecasts.

Still, solid economic numbers are not the most important thing on the minds of voters. Their focus is on high prices and interest rates, which are the most direct

impact effect

on their wallet.

Inflation, which peaked globally after supply chain and energy supply disruptions caused by the pandemic and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, respectively, may have fallen to their lowest level in two years, but Americans still pay dearly for groceries and goods in general. The rise in inflation has largely stalled as the Federal Reserve raised interest rates, but that in turn has driven up the cost of buying a house.

Their perception is at least as important as any economic indicator in shaping voters’ opinions of Biden

are

file. Biden suffers unfairly in comparison to Donald Trump, thanks to Trump’s supposed business acumen and the many Americans who believe his nonsense about how he created the greatest economy in history.

Take Trump’s life: Presidents Eisenhower, Johnson and Clinton were responsible for significantly higher growth. And people forget that Trump inherited a growing economy from President Obama; even at its peak, job creation under Trump did not exceed the pace during Obama’s second term. Aside from the pandemic, its trade wars have cost jobs and hurt investment, studies show. (Trump was the first president since Herbert Hoover to leave office with fewer jobs in the country than when he started.)

And he left his successor with the bag. The Biden economy that was bequeathed had been ravaged by pandemic disruptions, exacerbated by Trump’s erratic response to the crisis, including a twisted vaccine distribution system.

Republicans have been happy to contribute to Trump’s revisionist history and his distorted portrayal of conditions under Biden.

In the first party debate of the primary season, South Carolina Senator Tim Scott claimed that when Trump and Senate Republicans lost power after 2020, they were left with record low unemployment. No, it was almost 7%. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis began an attack on Bidenomics: Our country is in decline.

“

Two days later, Trump agreed to a fundraising email: We are a nation in decline.

Fact check: we are not. Such talk is just Republican gaslighting, but it adds to the negative polling that is Biden’s biggest handicap in his re-election quest.

A recent CNN poll found that just over half of Americans believe the economy is still in recession and deteriorating. Biden’s overall approval rating was bad enough at 41%, but only 37% agreed with his handling of the economy. A CNBC poll in late July produced similar findings; Eight in 10 Americans said the economy was just fair or bad.

Against the wind, Biden wisely adopted the term Bidenomics, which had emerged as a pejorative from the mouth of the Republicans.

He has hit the road to demonstrate his job-creating achievements, much of it in Republican-held congressional districts. His campaign began airing TV and digital ads in battlegrounds just in time for the Republican debates to begin. In the first ad, a narrator recalls how bad things were at the height of the pandemic, notes how much they’ve improved, then says of a picture of Trump wearing a MAGA cap: There are some who say America is failing. Not Joe Biden. The president’s

surrogates also spread the word th

a

he has earned a second term.

They’re right: economic realities should play a major role in the face of the Republican obsession with culture wars

Hunter

laptop, to Trump’s outrageous whining about partisan prosecutors, and even to concerns about Biden’s age.

For the president, the best defense is a strong offense. I just hope he can assemble one. And that a year from now, many more Americans will be willing to celebrate the second anniversary of Bidenomics and vote for its namesake.

@jackiekcalmes