2024-01-12 06:00:19
Published12. January 2024, 07:00
United States: Joe Biden sees the economy rosy, but not the voters
While the indicators are good, the American population sees the glass as half empty.
American President Joe Biden constantly praises this good economic health, which he attributes in particular to his policy renamed “Bidenomics”
AFP
To hear Joe Biden, everything is rosy for the American economy, and the statistics point in this direction, but voters continue to suffer from high prices and this gap in perception is weighing down the American president’s re-election campaign.
Joe Biden is traveling this Friday to Pennsylvania, a state that promises to be particularly contested during the November presidential election, to “explain how all of America is bouncing back thanks to his economic policy and his investment program,” according to its spokesperson.
Trump hopes the economy will decline
Donald Trump, who in all likelihood will face the 81-year-old Democrat once more, knows well that the economic situation will be one of the keys to the election. He even said publicly that he “hopes” that the situation will weaken between now and the vote, which would benefit his candidacy.
A boon for Joe Biden’s campaign team. She immediately responded that the former Republican president, “in his relentless quest for power and revenge, actually wanted millions of Americans to lose their jobs.”
The major indicators are green for the leading economic power: solid growth, vigorous employment, dynamic business creation, real wages which are picking up. The fear of a recession seems to be receding, in favor of a “soft” landing scenario.
“Better than my predecessor”
The American president constantly praises this good health, which he attributes in particular to his expansionist economic policy renamed “Bidenomics”, made up of major projects, giant investment plans, and purchasing power measures. “The economy has created more than 14 million jobs since I took office, wealth, wages and employment are higher than under my predecessor,” Joe Biden recalled Thursday in a press release.
However, he conceded that there remained “much to do” in the face of inflation, which accelerated once more in December, following several months of slowdown. Statistics are one thing. The perception of Americans is another: according to a recent survey broadcast by CBS News, two thirds of them consider the economic situation to be bad.
Blame it on the press
For Joe Biden, the fault lies partly with the press, which does not faithfully report his cherished economic policies. Asked recently regarding his forecast for the US economy this year, he told reporters: “Very good. Look for yourself. And start reporting it properly.”
According to her, it is especially the youngest consumers, those who are willing and able to change jobs for better-paid jobs, who capture the salary increases. The academic emphasizes that consumer confidence rebounded significantly and strongly last December, showing that households are “a little more confident” in their future purchasing power.
For her, despite everything, Americans “have not yet come to terms with the idea that we will not return to the norm before the pandemic”, nor to the prices of 2019.
Inflation has slowed, of course, but that does not mean that prices, overall, have fallen, only that they have increased, but less quickly. And no one can say how long it will take for households to forget that, for example, the price of a dozen eggs went from $1.5 on average before the pandemic, to more than $4 by the end of the pandemic. the year 2022, before going down somewhat.
Crucial next ten months
Add to this that the American central bank, the Fed, has increased its interest rates to curb inflation. Another blow for American households, who take out credit in abundance, for their housing, their studies, their car or their everyday purchases.
(afp)
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