evaluation of Biden's term

things that helped him & successes:

things that worked against him & failures:

increased access to affordable healthcare

  • Jan 2021: 12 million Americans had affordable healthcare via Affordable Care act

  • 2024: 21.3 million

workers unhappy with economy: soaring inflation overwrote wage gains, caused cost-of-living crisis

  • wage increases did not fully compensate for price increases

generally good management of economy compared to other G7 countries

  • American Rescue Plan Act 2021

  • Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act 2021

  • Chips and Science Act 2022

inflation decreased in 2024 but likely because of Biden’s high amounts of money stimulating economy in the first place » transmission mechanism also

between 2021 and 2024: 14.8million jobs added to the US economy » no other president in US history presided over so much job creation

Harvard CAPS-Harris poll 2024: 56% of Americans viewed their personal finances as being fair to poor

  • only 44% thought their finances were good to excellent

unemployment remained at below 4% for longest period of time since 1960s

border officials encountered 11million unauthorised migrants between Oct2019 and June2024

US-led international support for Ukraine = failure of Russia’s invasion » $200billion

Biden era: each year of Biden’s president = new annual record for illegal border crossings set

77% of Americans saw large number of migrants seeking to enter the country as either a crisis (45%) or major problem (32%)

  • 80% of Americans thought US govt was doing bad job

consensus view of withdrawal from Afghanistan = ill-judged disaster » chaotic 2-week evacuation of 120k ppl from Kabul airfield reminiscent of US exit from Vietnam in 1973

year after Afghan withdrawal: collapsed economy, humanitarian crisis, women’s rights n freedom of the media » curtailed - both Dems and Repubs critical of the decision to leave Afghanistan in the manner they did

support for Ukraine aid has waned: ‘expensive foreign war’

Feb 2024: 61% of Americans wanted limits on financial aid to Ukraine from USA

  • 70% wanted forced Ukraine negotiated peace asap » Biden rejected this