Vice President Kamala Harris speaks at the Sanmina Corp. facility in Wisconsin
The Biden-Harris Administration continued to take the message of Bidenomics directly to the American people this week—highlighting how the President's economic agenda is delivering critical support to historically underserved entrepreneurs, spurring a Made in America manufacturing boom, and creating millions of jobs across the country.
Bidenomics In the States
On Monday, Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg traveled to central and southern Illinois to highlight investments in clean energy made possible by Bidenomics and the Investing in America agenda, and traveled to Houston, Texas to participate in a ribbon cutting for the Houston Port and highlight how President Biden has made historic investments in American infrastructure.
On Wednesday, Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona traveled to Maryland to discuss how President Biden's Investing in America agenda is supporting career and technical education programs.
On Thursday, Vice President Harris traveled to Wisconsin with Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo to highlight broadband infrastructure investments made possible by the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law. Also, Secretary of Health and Human Services Xavier Becerra traveled to Las Vegas, Nevada and Portland, Oregon to highlight how President Biden and Congressional Democrats took on Big Pharma to lower health care costs for American families. Furthermore, Small Business Administrator Isabella Guzman traveled to Michigan to highlight how Bidenomics has helped usher in record small business growth.
And on Friday, the Vice President announced the 43 winners of the $125 million American Rescue Plan-funded Capital Readiness Program (CRP) awards competition, critical funding that will help underserved entrepreneurs launch and scale their small businesses—a key pillar of Bidenomics. She also spoke about the July employment report, which showed that the unemployment rate has fallen to 3.5%—marking a full year and a half below 4%. Under Bidenomics, unemployment is near a record low and the share of working age Americans who have jobs is at a 20-year high.
Bidenomics In the News
Reuters: 'Bidenomics is working' -VP Harris on jobs report (Video)
At an event in Washington, D.C. Friday, U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris delivered remarks praising the latest jobs numbers and "Bidenomics," an economic record that U.S. President Joe Biden is running on that focuses on low unemployment and public investment in job creation.
MSNBC: Jobless rate remains near half-century low in new jobs report
[Steve Benen, 8/4/23]
U.S. businesses added 187,000 jobs in July, keeping pace with June's solid hiring as employers sought to add staff amid a tight labor market. […] Even though hiring is cooling, employers are still adding new jobs, easing some concerns that the interest rate hikes could tip the economy into a recession.
New York Times: A Run of Strong Data Buoys Biden on the Economy
[Jim Tankersley and Ben Casselman, 8/1/23]
President Biden and his aides are basking in what is arguably the best run of economic data to date in his presidency. Inflation is cooling, business investment is rising, job growth is powering on and surveys suggest rising economic optimism among consumers and voters. […] That change in attitude may reflect an underlying economic reality: The combination of cooling inflation, low unemployment and rising pay means that American workers are seeing their standard of living improve. Hourly wages outpaced price gains in the spring for the first time in two years, giving consumers more purchasing power.
Washington Post (Opinion): 'Bidenomics' was born as a put-down. Now, it's a boast.
[Eugene Robinson, 7/31/23]
The portmanteau "Bidenomics" was coined as a mocking put-down. But now, President Biden is proudly embracing the term. And if recent economic trends continue, he might well have the last laugh. […] The problem for Biden's critics, though, is that Bidenomics appears to be working. […] But now, Biden is pointing at the consumer price index numbers and boasting: It worked. Meanwhile, unemployment has been at or near 50-year lows for more than a year — in June, it was 3.6 percent. The economy grew at a healthy 2.4 percent in the second quarter, despite the Federal Reserve's inflation-fighting hikes in interest rates. The stock markets are booming. The Fed no longer forecasts even a brief recession. Coming out of the historic turbulence caused by the covid-19 pandemic, in other words, we appear to be on a glide path toward a soft landing. It would be political malpractice for an incumbent president not to boast about such rose-colored numbers.
Washington Post: Republicans who fought Biden's agenda now claim credit for it
[Dana Milbank, 8/4/2023]
It's the first week of summer recess for Congress, time for lawmakers to meet constituents at a picnic, fly off on a junket with colleagues or, for some, to take credit for things they voted against. Sen. John Cornyn (R-Tex.) visited the massive Tesla plant in his home state, met with the company's raving CEO, Elon Musk, sat in a Tesla Cybertruck prototype and tweeted out the photos below.[…] Omitted from Cornyn's tweet: That he fought bitterly against the clean-energy tax credits that directly prompted Tesla to boost its U.S. manufacturing. Tesla's current expansion in U.S. output includes a massive new investment at the very plant Cornyn toured and touted. Cornyn and all other Senate Republicans opposed last year's Inflation Reduction Act, which contained massive tax incentives for electric vehicles.
Washington Examiner: Biden officials blanket US for August 'Bidenomics' blitz
[Christian Datoc, 07/31/23]
Biden's Cabinet will hit the road starting Monday, when 10 officials, including Vice President Kamala Harris, will blanket nine states and Puerto Rico to "underscore how Republican Members of Congress are threatening to put the growth and progress we've made at risk with their attempts to repeal critical provisions of the Inflation Reduction Act," according to the White House. The president himself also plans to travel to Arizona, New Mexico, and Utah following the conclusion of his Delaware vacation next week. The administration frequently praises Arizona as a case study for incentivizing tech manufacturing investments using funding allocated through Biden's spending bills, including the Inflation Reduction Act and CHIPS and Science Act.
HuffPost: Biden To Give Out Billions To Homeowners For Energy-Saving Renovations
With $8.5 billion to spend on the programs, regulators just laid out how accurately the White House wants states to measure how much energy is wasted.
[Alexander C. Kaufman, 07/31/23]
The Biden administration started taking applications Thursday for billions of dollars in federal tax rebates meant to flow through states to subsidize home improvement projects that save energy or swap fossil-fueled appliances to electric alternatives. The combined spending in the two separate programs of President Joe Biden's landmark Inflation Reduction Act — one focused on energy-saving improvements like adding insulation or new windows, the other aimed at funding electrification like switching from gas-fired furnaces to heat pumps – totals more than $8.5 billion.
Sourcing Journal: Biden in Maine Signs Executive Order to 'Invent it Here, Make it Here'
[Claire Wilson, 07/31/23]
President Joe Biden took the floor at a Maine textile mill Friday to sign an executive order designed to streamline the process of getting funding for U.S. inventions, increase transparency in the approvals process, smooth the reporting process, and encourage agencies to consider domestically produced commodities. The executive order also instructed the United States' Department of Commerce to simplify and make more transparent the process used to approve waivers for manufacturing U.S. inventions outside the country.
Spectrum: Biden, top WH officials set out on another travel blitz
[Maddie Gannon, 07/31/23]
The new travel blitz will mark the anniversaries of what the White House sees as some of Biden's biggest legislative accomplishments. Those include the Inflation Reduction Act, CHIPS and Science Act and PACT Act, which were all signed into law by Biden in August of last year. According to an administration official, this week will also see the Secretaries of Agriculture, Energy, Transportation, Health and Human Services, Education and more make stops in about 10 different states in total. Those states include: Oregon, Michigan, California, Maine, Texas, Nevada, Illinois, Wisconsin and Maryland.
South Bend Tribune: The Indiana, national impact of 'Bidenomics'
[Brian Howey, 07/31/23]
These were funds forged by Biden's American Rescue Plan passed by Congress on party-line votes and signed into law in late 2021, which only Indiana Democrat Reps. Andre Carson and Frank Mrvan helped pass. But this latest $868 million is only a fraction of federal funds flowing into Indiana since Biden took office in 2021.
The Atlantic: How the Recession Doomers Got the U.S. Economy So Wrong
[Derek Thompson, 8/3/23]
And how'd those experts do? So far, terribly. We're now in the back half of a year that was supposedly doomed, and the U.S. economy isn't just narrowly avoiding a downturn. As the writer Noah Smith points out, nearly everything you should want to go well in an economy is going quite well right now. Employment is high, inflation is falling, real incomes are rising, and inequality is narrowing. Superlatives abound. The official unemployment rate is near a 60-year low, and the jobless rate for Black Americans recently hit an all-time low. The U.S. has the fastest growth rate and the lowest annual inflation of any G7 country. Yes, problems exist. Essentials such as housing, education, and health care are still too expensive; wages could be growing faster; and last year's inflation is still baked into today's prices. But mostly, things are good—for now.
Bloomberg: The US Labor Market Is Still Kicking, Keeping the Economy Churning
[Reade Pickert, 8/3/23]
The persistent strength of the labor market has been a bit of a mystery — a welcome one, of course — to economists, given how fast the Federal Reserve has increased interest rates. In fact, the unemployment rate is expected to remain at the same level it was when the central bank first starting raising rates over a year ago — 3.6%. The job market's resilience is the backbone of the economy. Low unemployment means most Americans who want a job have one. That — paired with easing inflation — gives Americans the ability to keep spending, powering the economy along. (Don't forget about last week's surprisingly strong GDP report.) Low unemployment paired with the downward trend in inflation is part of the reason there's growing hope the US can avoid a recession. The slow decline in job vacancies, moderating wage growth and a pickup in the number of Americans working or seeking work also helps. In fact, just this week, Bank of America scrapped its forecast of a downturn in favor of a no-recession scenario.
Bidenomics on the Airwaves
CNBC: Squawk Box
BERMAN: A new month of job growth extending employment strength in the US Economy. 187,000 jobs were added in July and the unemployment rate ticked down to 3.5%, and now the 187,000 jobs added were lower than what economists were expecting. Joined now by Acting Labor Secretary Julie Su, and thank you for joining us, and economists were expecting more jobs added and what do you think of that?
SU: Well, this is the stable steady growth that the President predicted a year ago. We were hopeful that we would go from the record-breaking numbers of jobs created on the numbers created coming out of the pandemic, and now over 13.4 million jobs created since the President came into office, and it is the fastest job growth ever, and ten years ago in 2008, it took ten years to get that recovery, and now we are transitioning into the stable and steady growth that is the characteristic of the strong economy.
CNBC: Squawk Box
REBECCA QUICK: Joining us now is Jared Bernstein a lot more economists are on board with this idea of a soft landing, that inflation can be brought down without completely destroying the US Jobs market. I take it you're probably one of those who believes it.
JARED BERNSTEIN: Well, I certainly believe what we've seen in the data flow which has been positive and supportive of a transition the President has been talking about for a long time. I think what you're saying, though, is if you look at the CPI it was 9% a little over a year ago. And now at 3%. That's a huge decline. Very important breathing room for working families helping to support real gains. At the same time, we've given up very very little on the labor markets side. There has been some cooling there particular in the form of reduced vacancies but that combination is historically unique and quite positive for most Americans.
CNBC: Small Business Playbook
KATE ROGERS: So, we're going to talk a bit about accessing capital and some challenges and tips for entrepreneurs in order to access that money to grow their businesses. But first, I'd love to talk big picture right now, what's your pulse on small business in America and how are owners feeling?
ISABELLE GUZMAN: Well, I've been traveling across the country both meeting with businesses that have been part of the small business boom, the 12.2 million new business applications who are starting businesses, as well as established businesses across the country. And definitely I've sensed a change in the mood. You know, obviously, small businesses have continued to face challenges in the marketplace but they have done an incredible job pivoting, adapting and just facing the challenge day by day. But I'm hearing that inflationary pressures which used to really bog them down are minimizing, as we're seeing in the numbers. You know, they see opportunities, they're investing for growth, continuing to work, find workers in this environment, so many of them are, are finally starting to fill those jobs and so they're feeling hopeful for the future.
BUTTIGIEG: What you are going to see is a lot of support for people getting goods at the store or getting their own, if you are involved in agriculture, getting goods out to market. It's creating a lot of benefit for consumers. And then of course, there are the people who are directly involved in the industry. The ports and the activity around shipping in Houston, that's a big job generator, both directly and indirectly.
Bidenomics Resources
Statement: Statement from President Joe Biden on July Employment Report
Fact Sheet: Biden-Harris Administration High-Speed Internet Investments Spur Made-in-America Manufacturing Boom
Joseph R. Biden, Jr., ICYMI: This Week in Bidenomics Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/node/363740