ICYMI: Fareed Zakaria: President Biden's "Remarkable" Record

In a column today, Fareed Zakaria lays out President Biden's "remarkable" record.

Zakaria writes that, after decades of failed trickle-down economics, "Biden's measures helped trigger the strongest post-covid recovery of any major economy. The United States has produced more than 15 million jobs (the most ever for any president in one term), the unemployment rate stayed under 4 percent for over two years (the longest such run since the 1960s), and the Black labor force participation rate is now higher than that of Whites (for the first time ever on a sustained basis)."

Read more below:

Washington Post (Opinion): On the economy and foreign policy, Biden has notched important wins
[Fareed Zakaria, 7/26/24]

The president has been underestimated throughout his political career.

It is too early to write up the legacy of President Biden. He has six more months in office, and in these volatile times, much could happen. But it seems worth looking back at what we now know will be a one-term presidency and asking: What will define it in history?

To me, the signature aspect of Biden's presidency has been his big break from decades of economic policy. For almost half a century, the federal government has refrained from any transformative long-term investments in the American economy. (Even the large pandemic relief payments were for consumption, not investment.) […]

Biden changed this narrative. He used the resources of the federal government to make large investments — in infrastructure, child care, manufacturing and energy. These investments won't pay off anytime soon; many of them have just begun. But the United States is now undergoing the largest upgrade of its transportation infrastructure since the 1950s, with more than 56,000 projects already launched. It is seeing a boom in manufacturing investment and employment that reverses a decades-long trend. Green energy is booming, too. And for the year that it was in effect, Biden's expanded child tax credit helped reduce child poverty in America by 46 percent — lifting a staggering 3.4 million children out of poverty in one year. (The credit expired after a year, and congressional Republicans refused to renew it.)

Biden's measures helped trigger the strongest post-covid recovery of any major economy. The United States has produced more than 15 million jobs (the most ever for any president in one term), the unemployment rate stayed under 4 percent for over two years (the longest such run since the 1960s), and the Black labor force participation rate is now higher than that of Whites (for the first time ever on a sustained basis). […]

[O]verall, as former treasury secretary Lawrence H. Summers told Bloomberg TV, the record is "remarkable."

"I don't think any administration has so outperformed the economic forecasts on the day that it came into office," he added. […]

Biden's final legacy is that he has returned the presidency to an office of sanity, decency and dignity, ushering out the dangerous demagoguery and anti-democratic rhetoric and behavior that preceded him. […]

Joe Biden feels that he has been underestimated all his life. Judging by his tenure in the White House, he's right.