State of the Union 2023: Biden gambles economic happy talk will sell with unhappy voters
W. James Antle III
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President Joe Biden is going to make the case to a skeptical public that the U.S. economy is strong during his State of the Union address on Tuesday night.
The question is whether voters will buy it.
“I will just say what [Biden] said on Friday, which is that ‘the state of the economy is strong,’” top economic adviser Brian Deese told reporters at Monday’s White House daily briefing.
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“On average, American households are in a better position than they were before the pandemic hit,” Deese said.
Biden has a good story to tell. Inflation, after hitting a 41-year high on his watch, is starting to fall. Gross domestic product, after reports suggested it contracted for two consecutive months, grew at a nearly 3% clip in the fourth quarter of 2022. Unemployment has fallen to the lowest level since 1969.
The public is more pessimistic. A CBS News-YouGov poll this month found that 61% rate the condition of the economy as bad, compared to 33% who say it is good.
An ABC News-Washington Post poll found that only 16% said their personal finances were better off since Biden took office, while 41% said they were worse. Although 42% said there was no change, ABC’s Jonathan Karl noted it was “the most negative response to that question in nearly 40 years.”
Biden’s job approval rating on the economy is just 38%, according to the latest RealClearPolitics polling average, with 59.4% disapproving. That is worse than the popular assessment of how Biden is performing his job as president overall.
Democrats did better than expected in the midterm elections. White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters on Monday that Biden taking his case to the public averted a “red wave.”
“That’s because the president went out there, spoke directly to the American people, and laid out what it is that we have done the last two years,” she said, later adding, “We think the president played a very big role in laying out that message for Democrats.”
“The president will underscore the progress we have made during one of the most challenging times … in history,” she said of the State of the Union address.
“Part of what I think you’re going to see on Tuesday when the president’s addressing the nation and the Congress in the State of the Union is a reminder that this successful approach stands in stark contrast to a strategy that would focus on things like preserving tax cuts for millionaires and billionaires,” Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg told ABC’s This Week on Sunday.
But it is also true the economy and inflation were net negatives for the Democrats, Republicans won the House, and the exit polls also showed a high degree of economic pessimism outside of core Democratic voters.
There are elements of the economy that are performing quite well and were doing so prior to the business closures forced by the government and the pandemic.
The cost of living nevertheless remains high, and economic forecasters worry a recession could still happen this year, though some surveys show both metrics improving.
This makes it risky for Biden to engage in public happy talk about the economy that does not correspond with the voters’ attitudes.
“We understand that they are going to have some feelings about the economy now,” Jean-Pierre said.
“You make that case by pointing to the reality and recognizing that the story won’t tell itself,” Buttigieg said.
Biden will deliver his State of the Union address after rallying the Democratic National Committee, which voted to make the primary calendar more favorable to the president.
“We’ve created more jobs, more manufa — where is it written that says we can’t be the manufacturing capital of the world?” Biden said Friday. “I’m not joking. Where the hell is that written?”
Biden is trying to take back the narrative on the economy ahead of what increasingly looks like a near-certain reelection bid in 2024.
While Biden has not yet announced his intentions for next year, his DNC trip and State of the Union address are widely viewed as a soft launch of his eventual campaign.
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Although Biden’s prospects have improved since the midterm elections, rank-and-file Democratic voters continue to show skepticism of the 80-year-old seeking a second term. Two-thirds of all voters in the exit polls last year said they prefer he not run. Former President Donald Trump, who faces similar headwinds, has already announced his 2024 campaign.
Biden will deliver the State of the Union address to a divided Congress. Democrats retained the Senate last year, with a net gain of one seat, but Republicans now have the majority in the House.