President Biden will travel to Allentown, Pa., on Friday to highlight U.S. towns that he argues were failed by so-called trickle-down economics and are now making a comeback, the White House announced.
The president will tout on his trip that Allentown has added 32,000 jobs and the unemployment rate has dropped from 6.4 to 3.9 percent since he took office, senior administration officials said. He is expected to meet with “several” small-business owners and have “direct conversations” in Allentown, officials added.
“You’ll hear about how communities that had been left behind are making a comeback. Allentown was poorly served by trickle-down economics. It once with a booming steel town but, before the pandemic, employment, and small business opportunities were lagging in Allentown,” Lael Brainard, director of the National Economic Council, told reporters Thursday.
“Thanks to the resilience and grit of the community and President Biden’s policies, Allentown is making a comeback, as are many other … towns around the country,” she added.
Biden will also tout in Allentown that Americans have filed nearly 16 million new business applications during his first three years in office, special assistant to the president for economic policy Michael Negron told reporters, citing the Census Bureau.
The White House has been working to spread the message that Biden should get more credit for improving inflation and for the low unemployment rate, responding to polling suggesting voters aren’t resonating with his economic message.
Biden travels to Pennsylvania often and was in Valley Forge last week for a speech to mark the third anniversary of the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot. Pennsylvania is a pivotal battleground state that Biden won in 2020 after former President Trump, the current GOP front-runner, won it in 2016.
A recent poll from Quinnipiac University found Biden received 49 percent support in Pennsylvania and that Trump received 46 percent support from voters.
The economy and how Americans feel about it will likely play a central role in Biden and Trump’s expected rematch in November. Trump earlier this week said if there’s an economic crash, he hopes it will be within the “next 12 months,” which is an unprecedented move for a presidential candidate, considering the implications of a bad economy on voters.