ICYMI: The Roosevelt Institute Credits American Rescue Plan for Historic Economic Recovery

"[T]hese hard-fought political victories deserve a central place in the story of this recovery. Everything, from rapid job growth on down, was a choice based on prioritizing full employment. That was the right decision."

Today, the Roosevelt Institute highlighted the historic economic milestones the United States has achieved thanks to President Biden's American Rescue Plan. The blog highlights how quickly jobs have been created, with unemployment reaching a level previously forecasted for 2024. In particular, as a result of the President and Congressional Democrats' actions, lower-income families and workers are better off and household wealth has soared past pre-pandemic levels.

See below for excerpts from the article:

The Roosevelt Institute: The Year the American Rescue Plan Made: 2021 in Review
[Mike Konczal and Emily DiVito, 12/9/21]

"Through November, the US has added an average of 555,000 jobs per month, for a total of 6.1 million new jobs in 2021. For comparison, that eclipses monthly job growth after the Great Recession, which averaged just 130,000 jobs a month from 2010 to 2011. Even as the Delta variant raged, the US added an average of 405,000 jobs a month from August to November 2021. You may not realize this from the media coverage, because these numbers have been revised up 976,000 jobs throughout the year versus their initial reporting. Exact comparisons are tough, but we can clock this recovery, as Niskanen Center's Matt Darling does, at eight times the speed of the Great Recession."

"Wages are increasing for those who've historically been left behind during past recoveries. Using the Atlanta Fed's Wage Growth Tracker, we see younger workers (16-24 years old) saw a 9.7 percent wage increase, and the bottom 25 percent of earners saw a 5.1 percent raise. Workers with a high-school education and those at the bottom of the income distribution all saw wage growth stronger than average for recovery periods. This is still true when you account for the effects of inflation."

"Families are now more economically secure. Because of the American Rescue Plan and other investments, the bottom 50 percent of households now have more than $3 trillion in wealth—that's up nearly 20 percent from early 2021, and up 63 percent from pre-pandemic levels."