President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump are posturing over the economy as they prepare for what is poised to be a 2020 general election do-over this November.
Their endeavors to redefine their economic records and receive credit for a rosier outlook after the COVID-19 pandemic coincide with their appeals to working-class voters and the unions that represent some of them, with the demographic underpinning their respective 2016 and 2020 wins in states such as Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin.
In his pivot toward the campaign, Biden has underscored positive economic data, including Friday’s strong jobs report, last week’s reports that the economy expanded by 3.1% during the fourth quarter of 2024, and December’s annualized personal consumption expenditures price index, the Federal Reserve’s preferred inflation rate, was 2.9%, the lowest since March 2021. But despite surveys indicating consumer confidence is improving post-pandemic, the president has acknowledged differences of opinion amid the increase in the cost of living — while criticizing Trump.
“In recent weeks, we’re starting to see real evidence that American consumers are beginning to feel confidence — renewed confidence in the economy we’re building,” Biden told a crowd this week during a rally in Florida. “Let me tell you who else is noticing: Donald Trump. He recently said, ‘When the crash occurs, I hope it’s in the next 12 months.’ ‘When the crash occurs, I hope it’s in the next 12 months.’ It’s unbelievable. It’s un-American.”
“Here’s what he really means: Donald Trump knows the economy we’ve built is strong and getting stronger,” he said. “And he knows that, while it’s good for America, it’s bad for him politically.”
The Democratic National Committee has seized on the same Trump comments in addition to the former president claiming responsibility for the stock market. The Nasdaq composite, the S&P 500, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average opened higher Thursday after closing the previous day with their weakest performance in months in response to the Federal Reserve’s decision to hold interest rates steady as it seeks to address inflation.
“Under President Biden, the economy is growing and the stock market is booming — and Donald Trump knows it,” DNC spokesman Alex Floyd said. “Now, after leaving office with the worst jobs record since Herbert Hoover, Trump is desperately trying to mislead voters and take credit for President Biden’s strong economic recovery. Trump won’t be honest about the economy for the same reason he’s been rooting for the market to crash before the next election: He only cares about himself, and he’ll leave working families out to dry if he thinks it’ll help him and his ultra-rich friends.”
Floyd’s statement fails to reflect that both Biden and Trump’s jobs numbers have been affected by the pandemic, nor polling that reiterates how voters trust the former president more than the incumbent when it comes to the economy. Biden’s average job approval has tended to trend lower than his overall approval, with it currently being net negative 21 percentage points, 37% approval to 58% disapproval, at least according to RealClearPolitics. But it does emphasize the importance of the economy to their 2024 rematch.
For Richard Stern, the director of the Heritage Foundation’s Hermann Center for the Federal Budget, Biden should be credited with the economy — but for exacerbating inflation by encouraging the Federal Reserve to “print trillions upon trillions of dollars” in order to “paper over” potential unemployment.
“They actually made the hit to the economy worse by making it show up as inflation instead of employment, basically so that they could say, ‘Hey, look, we’re not technically in a recession,’” Stern said. “It’s also compounded by things that are going on that are mostly problems for the future. So part of that is the federal deficits are so large that they’re soaking up all the food off the buffet table or they’re draining all the oxygen out of the room, which is why interest rates have spiked.”
“That kind of crowding out from federal spending is a threat to growth going forward,” he added. “So that portends of even more slow growth, sluggish growth as we’re heading forward. … It’s a tax you pay, not because you file it, but it’s a tax you pay in the sense that you and everyone else in the economy is operating with prices where they are.”
Pandemic economic pressures have helped Trump appeal to working-class voters, many of whom were among the most affected by the COVID-19 lockdowns, even though it has traditionally been a Democratic voting bloc. For example, a CNN poll this week found that Trump dominated Biden among voters without a college degree by 17 points, 55% to 38%, with a margin of error of plus or minus 5.1 points.
After the United Auto Workers endorsed Biden, Trump has been making overtures to the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, meeting with them this week at their headquarters in Washington. The former president described the sit-down as “productive” and said it was important to “pay our respects,” citing the union’s concerns regarding immigration as one reason he has “a shot” at its nod. He additionally repeated that regardless of the executive board’s decision, he has “tremendous support” from the union’s rank-and-file, similar to the UAW.
“They like what I do,” Trump said. “They never had a better four years than they had during the Trump administration. I can say that for a lot of businesses and a lot of people — African American, Asian American, Hispanic American. They had the best four years they’ve ever had. Every one of them.”
The Biden campaign has been particularly assertive in its reactions to Trump’s entreaties to unions as polls report that the 2024 matchup will likely be close.
“Donald Trump pretends to be pro-worker then sides with management and does nothing while factories close and jobs are lost,” Biden campaign spokesman Ammar Moussa said. “Trump’s long record of attacking unions and shipping jobs overseas while lining the pockets of his rich buddies speaks for itself. While Trump spends his time attacking unions, President Biden is working every day to secure historic wins for labor and deliver for American workers.”
To that end, Biden traveled to Detroit on Thursday to thank UAW workers at a union hall, where several members were phoning voters before the state’s Democratic primary this month and for a “kitchen table conversation” with others, according to the White House.
CLICK HERE FOR MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER
“Wall Street didn’t build the middle class. Labor built the middle class, and the middle class built the country,” Biden said. “And when labor does well, everybody does well.”
“Folks, look, we now have, in large part because of you and organized labor, the strongest economy in the whole damn world,” he continued. “Inflation is coming down. Jobs are growing. We created 800,000 manufacturing jobs. Remember they told us we were dead — manufacturing is dead in America and China was going to eat our lunch? Well, guess what, man? We don’t taste that good.”
