Biden cites economic gains, but voters see more to do

Josh Boak, Zeke Miller and Chris Megerian, Associated Press

Seven months before he faces a critical test from voters in the midterm elections, President Joe Biden is turning his focus to kitchen-table issues as he struggles to get credit for a recovering economy.

Since Biden took office last year, job growth has been vigorous and steady — as he told the country Friday after the March jobs report showed the addition of 431,000 jobs and the unemployment rate falling to a low 3.6%. But those same remarks were also tempered by his recognition that food and gas prices are too high and inflation is at its worst level in a generation.

For Biden, convincing Americans of the progress made in the economic recovery only serves as a salient reminder of how much further the country has to go. “Our economy has gone from being on the mend, to being on the move,” Biden said, even as he acknowledged Americans are not ready for a victory lap. “I know that this job is not finished: We need to do more to get prices under control.”

At times, Biden’s bifurcated messaging — like the state of the economy itself — can seem like a jumble of contradictions. It leaves voters to piece together their own opinions — potentially to the president’s political peril. Record wage gains of 5.6% over the past year, for example, run up against consumer prices that have risen at 7.9% annually. Biden’s announcement this past week of plans to release a million barrels of oil daily from the US strategic reserve over the next six months was a recognition of the harm that inflation can have not just on the economy but his own policy ambitions.

The economic discontent is reflected in Biden’s standing in public opinion polls.

Roughly 7 in 10 people in the United States describe the economy as being in poor shape, while nearly two-thirds disapprove of Biden’s economic leadership, according to a March poll by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research.  Administration officials and Biden allies happily point to the job creation data as a sign of accomplishment but they are also perturbed by the lingering economic malaise that threatens him with a historically inhospitable environment for a president’s party in a midterm year.

They have advised Biden to spotlight his work to bring down gas prices and forthcoming efforts to try to curtail an increase in food prices from the war raging in the world’s breadbasket of Ukraine.

The administration is also looking to highlight broader access to health insurance under the Affordable Care Act and Medicare with an event Tuesday featuring Biden’s old boss, former President Barack Obama. The White House says Biden “will take additional action to further strengthen the ACA and save families hundreds of dollars a month on their health care.”

It is not just the family budget he is targeting. Biden’s latest message to voters is that he can bring the nation’s finances under control too.

His annual budget request highlighted a $1 trillion decrease in the deficit over 10 years, an effort to claim the mantle of fiscal steward even as the reduction was driven by the expiration of COVID-19 relief programs that are no longer necessary and a new plan for a minimum tax on the nation’s billionaires. “Responsible fiscal accountability is always a priority with voters,” said Democratic pollster John Anzalone, who advised Biden’s 2020 campaign. “I think people want fiscal accountability. And I don’t think that’s changed over the years.”

Biden aides also hope he can spend more time focusing on other ways that government is working to make concrete changes in peoples’ lives, with infrastructure investments and the improving economy. Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, the Democratic presidential nominee in 2016, said there seemed to be a “disconnect” between Biden’s legislative achievements and his handling of the war in Ukraine, and the public’s understanding.