CNN —
President Joe Biden arrived at the White House in 2021 at a time of turmoil and uncertainty across a nation reeling from the pandemic, and in his inaugural address, Biden promoted unity and pledged to leave the nation “stronger, more prosperous and better prepared for the future.”
But as Biden has acknowledged throughout his presidency, there is more work to be done. That job could fall to Vice President Kamala Harris, who will continue Biden’s campaign promises to rebuild the middle class, invest in infrastructure, boost domestic manufacturing and reduce health care costs.
There has been a lot of good news for the U.S. economy since Harris began her presidential campaign.
Thursday’s strong GDP reading and the possibility that the U.S. is achieving the rare feat of tame inflation without sending the economy into recession were another highlight in Harris’ campaign to persuade Americans to take office in November. And on Friday, the Federal Reserve’s preferred inflation measure edged closer to the central bank’s 2% target, all but confirming a September interest rate cut.
Ms. Harris will be campaigning on Mr. Biden’s mostly strong economy. Still, one of her biggest challenges will be overcoming the negative feelings many Americans have about the economy, resulting from skyrocketing prices for everything from groceries to rent over the past four years. It remains to be seen whether those perceptions will improve now that Mr. Biden is out of the race.
With 100 days left in the presidential election campaign, here’s the current state of the economy.
Inflation, interest rates and a resilient economy
When Biden took office, inflation was virtually nonexistent, with consumer prices rising 1.4% annually, but things have quickly deteriorated.
By June 2021, six months into Biden’s presidency, U.S. inflation had soared to more than 5%. A year later, as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine sent energy prices soaring, inflation hit 9.1%, the highest in more than 40 years. But much of that inflation was also the result of big spending under both the Trump and Biden administrations in the wake of the pandemic.
View this interactive content on CNN.com
Inflation has calmed significantly since then, with prices falling last month for the first time since the pandemic began, but overall, Americans are paying 20% more for goods and services now than they did in January 2021, according to Consumer Price Index data.
The economy finally began to slow after the Federal Reserve raised interest rates to their highest level in 23 years to tame inflation. But it hasn’t fallen into recession, one of the risks of the Fed raising interest rates too quickly. Gross domestic product, a measure of all goods and services produced in the economy, was strong in the first half of the year. After adjusting for inflation and seasonal fluctuations, GDP grew at a strong 2.8% annual rate from April to June, according to Commerce Department figures released Thursday.
In April 2020, the pandemic brought the US economy to a screeching halt and the unemployment rate soared to nearly 15%, the highest level since the Bureau of Labor Statistics began tracking it in 1948.
The unemployment rate had already fallen to 6.4% when Biden took office. But the continued strength of the labor market defied expectations for much of Biden’s presidency. The unemployment rate remained below 4% for more than two years, the longest streak since the 1960s. But cracks have begun to appear in the labor market, and the unemployment rate has since risen above 4%.
View this interactive content on CNN.com
Biden’s bipartisan Infrastructure Investment, Jobs, and Inflation Control Act would pump more than $1.6 trillion to rebuild and modernize infrastructure, spur clean energy investment, and strengthen American manufacturing.
While the full effects of this comprehensive bill will take years, if not decades, to be felt as the funding, construction, and implementation processes take time, the U.S. economy is already seeing some of its short-term benefits, including a surge in industrial facilities, electric vehicles, and manufacturing jobs, and the start of long-awaited municipal projects to replace bridges and lead pipes.
Promoting clean energy and oil production
Biden’s energy policy is heavily tied to clean energy rather than fossil fuels, and the Inflation Control Act of 2022 includes more than $350 billion in support for electric vehicles, charging stations and more.
He is often seen as anti-oil, attacking oil companies for sending gasoline prices to record highs after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
But domestic oil production is set to hit a record high in 2023, averaging 12.9 million barrels of oil per day, more than any country has ever produced, and so far projections for 2024 show production increasing by another 3%.
View this interactive content on CNN.com
Biden, who has been called “the most pro-union president in our lifetime” by the AFL-CIO, has often been a confidant of labor unions.
Trump’s National Labor Relations Board has often sided with unions and workers, and he was the first sitting president to walk to the picket line during the 2023 United Auto Workers strike. Union membership and organizing have increased during Trump’s presidency, winning double-digit wage increases for nearly 1 million union members last year.
But instead of letting the freight railroad unions strike, Trump and Congress forced them into an unpopular contract, and even some of the union’s allies expressed concern about Trump’s reelection effort.
Evan Vucci/AP
President Joe Biden joins a picket line for striking United Auto Workers union members on September 26, 2023, in Van Buren Township, Michigan.
Relief for consumers, families and seniors
The Biden administration is focused on ways to save consumers billions of dollars each year, from forgiving millions of student loan debt to cracking down on junk fees.
This includes a campaign to eliminate or cap “hidden junk” fees and require companies to be transparent about all fees up front. The Biden administration also finalized rules to make it easier for airline passengers to get quick, automatic cash refunds if their flight is canceled or significantly changed, and to provide advance information about baggage fees and flight change fees.
The Biden administration has also provided economic relief to American families during the pandemic, with Biden signing the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 into law, one of the largest federal efforts to reduce poverty in the past half century.
Among other economic relief measures, ARPA temporarily expanded the child tax credit, cutting the U.S. child poverty rate by nearly half, and the Biden administration, through the Stop Inflation Act, has enacted measures to reduce drug costs, such as capping the monthly cost of insulin for Medicare enrollees at just $35.
Eros Hoglund/Getty Images
People walk on the campus of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill on June 29, 2023. The Biden administration has forgiven $168 billion in student loan debt for 4.8 million Americans.
His administration has also reduced student loan debt, ensuring that higher education is, as Biden put it, “a ticket to the middle class, not a barrier to opportunity.” To date, his administration has forgiven $168 billion in student loan debt for 4.8 million Americans.
The Biden administration has led increased regulation of some of America’s biggest companies, challenging the market dominance of tech giants, particularly Apple, Amazon, Meta and Google.
Working together, the Federal Trade Commission, led by Lina Khan, and the Justice Department’s Antitrust Division, led by Jonathan Cantor, have aggressively sued to block corporate mergers, spearheading Biden’s efforts to fulfill his campaign promise to rein in the corporate greed that drives up prices.
The agency has made big decisions, stifling proposed deals between major grocery chains, airlines and pharmaceutical companies.It hasn’t been a perfect record: The FTC has notched up some notable defeats, such as its effort to block Microsoft’s $69 billion acquisition of video game maker Activision Blizzard, and many efforts, such as the Justice Department’s landmark lawsuit against Apple, could be mired in litigation for years.
Biden has taken a largely protectionist stance toward the tech industry, signing a high-profile bill in April that would ban the Chinese-owned video-sharing app TikTok unless it finds a new owner, citing national security concerns.
He also significantly boosted domestic chip production and research with the CHIPS Science Act, which was passed in 2022 with bipartisan support, as part of an effort to reclaim the U.S.’s status as a leading semiconductor chip-making nation.
But he hasn’t had a warmer reception in Silicon Valley as the administration moves to beef up scrutiny of big tech mergers, and in 2023 the Justice Department and FTC unveiled new guidelines aimed at blocking deals they deem anticompetitive.
In contrast, Harris is hoping to become the first president from Silicon Valley and has received a largely warm welcome from the tech industry.
Here’s how the stock market will perform in each year of President Biden’s term:
2021: S&P 500 up 27%. The stock market has again prevailed despite the deadly COVID-19 pandemic, but investors have begun preparing for the possibility that the Fed will raise interest rates for the first time since March 2018, bringing an end to the era of “easy money.”
2022: The S&P 500 crashed 19%. Stocks tumbled as the Federal Reserve accelerated its zero interest rate policy to tame inflation, raising concerns that high borrowing costs could eat into corporate profits.
View this interactive content on CNN.com
2023: S&P 500 up 24%. Stocks had a strong year despite the Fed’s continued interest rate hike campaign, thanks in large part to the boom in artificial intelligence, which has seen seven major tech stocks, known as the “Magnificent Seven,” soar as they are seen as being at the forefront of the revolution.
2024: The S&P 500 is up about 16% this year after repeatedly hitting new all-time highs. Strong corporate earnings this year and the continued AI boom have helped drive stocks higher. Slowing inflation readings in recent months and hopes of an imminent rate cut by the Fed have sparked further euphoria, but stocks have been trading lower in recent sessions.
