Is Biden's Economic Message Strong Enough to Rise Above the 2024 Noise? | Vanity Fair

Written by Eric Lutz

The current state of the economy under Joe Biden's leadership is not in the "ruins" as put forth by his projected 2024 adversary on Thursday. As per the most recent jobs report, 199,000 new jobs were introduced by employers in November, and unemployment rate dropped to as low as 3.7 percent. Concurrently, a 0.4-percent increase in wages was also noted as per the figures released on Friday by the Labor Department.

By utilising these robust figures, which were indeed better than anticipated, Biden's reelection campaign team has justified the effectiveness of his economic plans. A representative of Biden's campaign, Seth Schuster, confirmed on Friday that in less than three years, Biden had outperformed all past presidents in job creation within a span four years. He did so despite having to manage the economic catastrophe left by his predecessor, Donald Trump.

However, the challenge for the Biden campaign remains in effectively transmitting this message to the voting populace, whose confidence in the economy and in "Bidenomics" specifically is waning.

Moreover, the president and his party have been performing poorly in various economy-specific polls. Recent data from both ABC News/Ipsos and NBC News polls indicate that respondents trust Republicans more in handling the economy than Democrats. Despite this bleak outlook, MSNBC's Chris Hayes, argued that there is a substantial disparity between how the U.S. citizens feel about the economy and its actual performance.

As mentioned by Governor Gavin Newsom of California, an ardent Biden supporter, the voters are uninformed about the administration's track record. Newsom states that voters are not exposed to abundant information about it.

While the president and his supporters have not shied away from celebrating their victories, it has been a challenge for Biden to balance acclamation of true achievements with citizens' actual economic fears. As a result, the critics from the Republican party have overshadowed Biden's careful optimism with their louder expressions of pessimism. Trump recently stated on social media that the economy was thriving under his administration but the current state under Biden's rule is chaotic due to various worldwide crises.

Such claims by Trump are dubious, considering that three years ago, the world was battling a lethal pandemic, the U.S. was in chaos, and unemployment was approximately seven percent. Regardless, Trump seeks to use the existing ennui and uncertainties domestically and abroad to further his political agenda. As a countermeasure, Biden, who visited the Colorado district of Lauren Boebert, a strong MAGA advocate, has been increasingly proactive in dispelling the right-wing narrative. At a manufacturing facility in Pueblo, he emphasized his successful economic policies, which have been criticized as a "failure" by Boebert. Biden not only has to address the actual economic apprehensions of citizens that are not easily placated by positive jobs reports, but also continue to maintain a positive outlook regarding his accomplishments.