Joe Biden is an unpopular president. In a recent poll, 38 percent of Americans approved of his performance in office; 54 percent disapproved. 37 percent approved of his handling of the economy; 58 percent disapproved. Since the advent of modern polling, only Jimmy Carter has had worse numbers at this point in his presidency. Moreover, about 70 percent of Americans do not want Biden to run for reelection.
There are many reasons for voters’ dissatisfaction. Biden is old. He looks old and walks with a stiff gait. He’s a lousy speaker. As he has throughout his political career, Biden is a “gaffe machine.” Recently, the president declared that “clearly,” Vladimir Putin is “losing the Iraq War.”
Biden is also the target of our hyper-partisan politics. MAGA Republicans studiously ignore Donald Trump’s age (77), fraudulent business practices, criminal indictments, and gaffes (he confused 9/11 with the convenience chain store 7-Eleven and during a deposition mistook a photograph of E. Jean Carroll, who accused him of rape, for his ex-wife, Marla Maples). They claim, without evidence, that Biden participated in a multimillion dollar bribery scheme with his son, is mentally unfit to be president, and should be impeached. No wonder, given the daily dissemination of this disinformation, only 4 percent of Republican voters approve of Biden’s performance in office (in contrast to the 16 percent approval GOP voters gave President Obama).
And, of course, many Americans blame Biden for high prices at supermarkets and gas stations.
Biden is getting a bad rap. He has, in fact, been remarkably successful at steering the nation through a deadly pandemic that brought the economy to its knees.
The American Rescue Plan, which passed without Republican support, boosted consumer spending and helped reduce unemployment from 6.3 percent to 3.4 percent by January 2023, the lowest rate in about 50 years. Black unemployment dropped from 9.2 percent to 5.4 percent and Hispanic unemployment from 8.5 percent to 4.5 percent. Along with other sectors of the economy, manufacturing jobs increased dramatically. Industrial productivity grew as well. The temporary expansion of the Child Care Tax Credit reduced the number of children living in poverty by about 40 percent between July and December 2021.
President Biden directed the strategy, hashed out the details, approved compromises, lobbied Republicans and kept moderate and progressive Democrats on board to secure passage of a bipartisan Infrastructure Bill. The legislation allocated $550 billion to repair or build roads, bridges, railroads, subways, and airports; replace lead drinking water pipes; and provide broadband internet access to millions of rural Americans. Donald Trump, it’s worth noting, once promised to spend twice as much as Hillary Clinton on infrastructure. As president his frequent announcements of an “Infrastructure Week” that never happened became a running joke in Washington.
Another Biden Administration bipartisan bill boosted the domestic manufacture of “chips,” components of the vitally important semiconductor industry. The initiative benefits national security as well as the economy: while China ramped up production, the U.S., which once controlled 37 percent of the world supply, has dropped to 12 percent.
Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act allowed Medicare to negotiate prices on some drugs and capped out-of-pocket costs for Medicare recipients at $2,000 a year. The legislation also featured an ambitious, long overdue program to address the existential threat climate change poses to the planet. The bill provides substantial tax credits for the manufacture and purchases of electric cars, buses, trucks, solar panels, furnaces, water heaters, stoves, windows, doors, insulation and other weatherization measures. In addition to saving families thousands of dollars a year on energy bills, the law is likely to result in a 40 percent reduction in fossil fuel emissions in the United States by 2030.
Consciously designed to stimulate spending to avoid a recession, the Biden Administration’s efforts in all likelihood did contribute to inflation. The American Rescue Plan is projected to add $1.9 trillion to the national debt by 2031. The Infrastructure Bill will add another $400 billion. By raising taxes on large corporations and individuals making over $400,000 a year, and reducing prescription drug costs, however, the Inflation Reduction Act will actually reduce the debt by about $100 billion by 2031.
For some context: President Trump, who promised to eliminate the entire national debt in eight years, added $7.8 trillion to it, a whopping 33.1 percent increase.
During Biden’s tenure as president, it’s important to note, the American economy has performed substantially better than the economy of any other industrialized nation. Since the fourth quarter of 2019, the GDP has grown 5.3 percent in the United States, 3.5 percent in Canada, 2.4 percent in Italy, 1.3 percent in Japan, 1.3 percent in France, minus 0.1 percent in Germany, and minus 0.5 percent in the UK. A worldwide phenomenon, caused by pandemic shutdowns and supply chain disruptions, inflation during this period has risen 8.7 percent in the UK, 8 percent in Italy, 6.1 percent in Germany, 5.1 percent in France, 4 percent in the U.S., 3.4 percent in Canada, and 3.2 percent in Japan. Inflation in the United States, moreover, peaked earlier and fell sooner than in the other G7 countries.
Biden has restored decency and a respect for law and the Constitution to the presidency. In the wake of a deadly pandemic, attempts to overturn the results of a free and fair presidential election, and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, he has worked hard to build back better. The evidence indicates he’s done a damn good job. In 2024, Biden may well represent, for the second time, the last best hope for the survival of democracy in America.
Glenn C. Altschuler is the Thomas and Dorothy Litwin Professor of American Studies at Cornell University. He is the co-author (with Stuart Blumin) of “Rude Republic: Americans and Their Politics in the Nineteenth Century.”