Joe Biden’s presidency is wrapping up, and the economic disaster he’s leaving behind speaks louder than any speech he’s ever given. Inflation is at record highs, wages are failing to keep up, and Americans are drowning in debt.
Biden promised a stronger, more resilient economy. Instead, he delivered policies that left families scrambling to make ends meet while the national debt soared to levels that make Wall Street nervous.
Critics across the spectrum have blasted his economic agenda, from his handling of inflation to the reckless spending sprees that define his administration. This is the perfect time to call it:- The legacy of Bidenomics is a full-blown embarrassment.
Inflation, wages, and the painful cost of living
Let’s start with inflation, the silent thief robbing Americans blind under Biden’s watch. By June 2022, inflation reached 9.1%, the highest since 1981.
Prices on everything from groceries to gas have skyrocketed, with an overall increase of nearly 20% since he took office. For the average American household, this means an extra $17,000 sucked out of their wallets each year.
Wages have been another disaster. Sure, nominal wages have gone up, but what good is a bigger paycheck when it buys less? Real wages — what people actually earn after adjusting for inflation — have dropped by 4% since January 2021.
The situation has driven many Americans to rely on credit cards just to get by. Total household debt has exploded by 21%, with credit card debt alone hitting a record $1.12 trillion. These aren’t numbers you spin into a “win for the economy.” This is what economic failure looks like.
And while inflation raged, growth fizzled. GDP growth was a relatively strong 3.4% at the end of 2023, but by early 2024, it had plummeted to 1.4%. Economists have said that Biden’s spending habits and lack of fiscal discipline have done more harm than good, pushing the economy closer to stagnation. But do they really have to?
The government has sent an unfathomable amount of money in aid to countries like Ukraine and Israel with absolutely nothing to show for it.
They’ve poured billions into initiatives like the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) and the CHIPS Act, but where are the results? These programs promised a manufacturing renaissance, with nearly $400 billion allocated to green industries and semiconductor production.
Yet, most of the projects funded are still under construction, and the benefits haven’t reached American workers. Manufacturing construction spending hit $238 billion in June 2024, double what it was two years ago, but the jobs and tangible benefits remain largely theoretical.
Meanwhile, servicing the national debt now costs more than the country spends on national defense. How crazy is that?
Energy policies and supply chain chaos
Energy costs are another sore spot. Biden’s regulatory policies have piled costs onto small businesses and pushed energy prices higher. The administration’s decisions have driven up production costs across industries, leaving companies and consumers footing the bill.
Supply chain disruptions, exacerbated by these policies, have led to empty shelves and inflated prices for basic goods. Take the lithium industry as an example. Biden’s IRA promised to encourage domestic production of key materials like lithium, critical for electric vehicle batteries.
But Albemarle, the world’s largest lithium producer, recently paused a $1.3 billion refining project in South Carolina. Why? The costs were too high, and federal support didn’t arrive as promised. This is just one of many examples where Biden’s policies created more problems than they solved.
Public sentiment turns against Biden and his Party
Unsurprisingly, consumer confidence in Biden and the Democrats has tanked. Poll after poll shows Americans are fed up with the current state of the economy. For many, the rising costs of living and lack of economic progress are driving their discontent.
We saw this frustration show up at the ballot box when they gave Republican Donald Trump a landslide win against his opponent, the sitting Vice President Kamala Harris.
Trump has vowed to dismantle most of Biden’s initiatives, calling the IRA in particular a “green new scam” and criticizing the CHIPS Act as wasteful. Congressional Republicans have made more than 50 attempts to repeal the IRA since it was enacted, and now, with Trump back in power, those efforts may succeed.
The irony is hard to ignore. Most of the manufacturing investments sparked by Biden’s policies have gone to Republican-controlled districts.
Roughly 65% of the projects announced since the IRA and CHIPS Act are located in counties that voted for Trump in 2020. These same areas are now reaping the benefits of policies their representatives oppose. Politics is indeed a very brutal game.
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