You’re unhappy with this economy? OK, that’s your right. But you should seriously consider whether you want the available alternative.
Last November, I wrote what I thought was a modest commentary about how the Biden economy was doing remarkably well, at least by most standard macroeconomic measures, and much of the corporate media wasn’t reporting about it. Job numbers were historically high, unemployment low and the U.S. had done the best of all G-7 economies in bringing down inflation resulting from the worst pandemic years.
I was careful to note that my wife and I, and members of our daughters’ generation, were still feeling economic pain around the cost of food and housing, and that many younger people felt they could not get their lives started due to student debt and high housing prices.
I got considerable grief from readers for that one, but I stand by what I wrote about the Biden administration’s active economic moves and a renewed focus on industrial policy to accomplish goals that simply cannot be left to “the marketplace.” Leaving infrastructure work to the marketplace is how America wound up with so many embarrassing airports, shaky bridges and poky, increasingly dangerous trains. There are things we must do together.
As I wrote at the time, Biden’s manufacturing plan invests in rural areas and will transform local economies:
He’s the first president in many decades to stand with organized labor and support its fight for better wages and benefits. He continues to work on alleviating the crushing student debt that limits so many young adults’ lives. He has taken on Big Pharma, moving to lower prescription drug prices and health care costs for older Americans. He is working to stop the junk fees hidden in so many transactions. He rejoined the Paris climate accords and has done far more to address that crisis than any previous president.
The general economic news has only improved since then, including strong jobs numbers for March and April. As Democratic strategist Simon Rosenberg writes, the U.S economy typically does much better when a Democrat is in the White House. Biden’s record of more than 15 million new jobs amounts to eight times as many as were created under the last three Republican presidents combined. Although inflation for consumer goods rose slightly in March, which is not good news for anyone, the Federal Reserve has done a good job in carefully bringing inflation down after the supply-chain disruptions and supermarket price hikes of the pandemic. Remember the corporate media braying endlessly about the coming recession? Well, it never came.
So here we are: The macroeconomic indicators look great, but your household budget may remain a struggle. Gas prices keep rising, but that’s largely the result of decisions made in Saudi Arabia and Russia, well beyond the Biden administration’s control.
But here’s what I wasn’t thinking about enough when I wrote that earlier commentary: People in this country are kept unsettled and economically stressed by living with a threadbare social safety net, one relentlessly under attack by Republicans. When you’re living paycheck to paycheck, as a frightening number of Americans do, there is no room for higher food, housing or fuel costs. Long before either Biden or Trump occupied the White House, living costs were rapidly outpacing rising incomes. That’s a global issue, but for a wealthy nation, we have a startling amount of homelessness, partly because of the high cost of housing and partly because of that paltry social safety net.
Still, if Americans actually paid attention to how other countries are dealing with inflation, for example, they might feel a lot better about the Biden economy. For that matter, if Americans were better versed in the writings and actions of our founders, they might understand that they believed in a strong central government and…
This article was originally published by a www.salon.com . Read the Original article here. .