State of the Union 2023: White House signals economic optimism ahead of Biden speech
Haisten Willis
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The White House is aggressively promoting a rosy economic outlook ahead of President Joe Biden‘s State of the Union address on Tuesday night.
In the wake of a strong jobs report, the Biden administration says the president will talk up the economic positives as a major theme in his speech.
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“You will hear [Biden] talk about the progress that we have made,” said Brian Deese, the director of the National Economic Council. “This has been an animating part of what the president has wanted to achieve as president.”
Deese spoke during Monday afternoon’s White House press briefing to promote the economic portions of Biden’s speech. He also used the president’s “bottom-up, middle-out” tagline to describe how the White House wants to grow the economy, contrasting that with “trickle-down economics.”
In addition to Deese’s appearance, the White House has released a lengthy fact sheet with the headline “The Biden economic plan is working.”
Despite lingering high inflation, the economy gained 517,000 jobs in January, smashing expectations, in another sign that the Federal Reserve’s interest rate hikes have yet to harm the labor market substantially.
The figures reported by the Bureau of Labor Statistics on Friday morning provide reassurance about the strength of the economy. The unemployment rate fell to 3.4%, the lowest rate since 1969.
Biden and Deese have each said the pandemic is to blame for inflation, not White House policies such as the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan.
In addition to inflation, an ABC poll found that 4 out of 10 people say they’ve gotten worse off financially since Biden became president, the most in the poll’s 37-year history.
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre echoed her White House colleague’s remarks during her time at the podium.
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“[Biden] will underscore the progress we’ve made during one of the most challenging times in history,” she said. “He has transformed how we see the economy. … This is an opportunity to speak to the American people.”
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