As 2024 political campaigns ramp up, President Joe Biden is slated to deliver a speech in Chicago on Wednesday about his economic priorities, with aides touting it as a cornerstone address about “Bidenomics.”
The president’s remarks will “highlight how his strategy of growing the economy by growing the middle class is delivering for the American people,” said White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre during a briefing on Monday.
Bidenomics so far has been in part about spending on infrastructure
PAVE,
aiming for more domestic manufacturing, addressing climate change and trying to raise taxes on corporations and the wealthy, while rejecting “trickle-down economics.”
When asked about the term, Jean-Pierre told reporters that it “makes good sense — Bidenomics, right? It kind of flows off the tongue really well.” She also acknowledged that it’s not easy to change Americans’ perceptions about the economy with a speech.
“We’re going to try,” she said.
A survey of U.S. consumer confidence slipped to a six-month low last month, as many Americans remained gloomy about the economy, worried about inflation and said jobs were getting harder to find.
Biden and other administration officials are in the middle of an “Invest In America” tour, and they’re “going on the offensive in selling and implementing a new economic vision,” said analysts at Beacon Policy Advisors in a note.
“There is some uptick in economic sentiment but Americans overwhelmingly have a negative outlook on the economy,” even as inflation has more than halved and unemployment stays low, the analysts wrote. Voters have been maintaining “a remarkably dim and steady view of Biden,” they added.
About 54% of Americans don’t approve of Biden’s performance, while 42% do, according to a RealClearPolitics moving average of job-approval polls. That’s similar to two months ago, when Biden officially announced his 2024 re-election bid.
Meanwhile, the field for the 2024 Republican presidential primary has grown to 12 relatively well-known contenders.
The latest to declare his candidacy is former Texas Rep. Will Hurd, who entered the race Thursday. Former President Donald Trump has a big lead in polls of GOP primary voters, with Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis holding in second.
Beacon’s analysts noted that a recent Pew Research Center survey has Republicans with a 12-point edge over Democrats on economic issues. They also flagged how the GOP has its own new word — “Bidenflation,” with the House Ways and Means Committee running a webpage in that term’s honor.
“Republicans are using a different Biden eponym,” Beacon’s team said.
U.S. stocks
SPX,
DJIA,
finished lower on Monday, sending the Dow down for a sixth straight session, as investors assessed the ramifications of Russia’s short-lived revolt and jitters around the economic outlook.
Now read: The economy was supposed to cave in by now. It hasn’t — and GDP is set to rise again.
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