Biden’s Presidential Accomplishments
Biden’s greatest accomplishment has been to strengthen America with economic and humanitarian policies. He took many steps to shore up our democracy: government of the people, by the people, and for the people.
In economic life of America the cost of living is going down in spite of inheriting an inflationary economy from his predecessor!
- Salary increases are outpacing inflation. The job growth in his first three years outperformed any previous president. Nearly 11 million jobs have been created since 2021, including 750,000 new manufacturing jobs. This is the strongest job growth in history.
- We are experiencing the lowest unemployment rate in 50 years: 3.5%! There is a record low unemployment rate for people with disabilities and a near record low unemployment rate for Hispanics and African Americans. $15 is the minimum wage for federal workers and contractors. Income inequality is narrowing at last!
- Families are better off than they were before Biden’s presidency and his policies are targeting inequality. Net worth has climbed under his presidency. The cost of energy, gas, and internet are lower. He initiated over 100 actions to lower household energy costs by $100 per year. He helped bring gas prices down more than $1.60 from their summer 2022 peak. Over 16 million households receive lower cost or free high-speed internet through the Affordable Connectivity Program.
President Biden has created rapid disinflation that no other president in history achieved.
The health of Americans has improved dramatically. President Biden rescued the economy and changed the course of the pandemic. 79% of American adults are fully vaccinated against covid-19.
- There are more people with health insurance than ever before in American history.
- Millions of Americans are saving $800 per year on health insurance coverage. There is an all-time low of uninsured Americans. Over 90% of the people are insured.
- He reignited the Cancer Moonshot with the goal of cutting the cancer death rate by at least half over the next 25 years.
- He ended our failed approach to marijuana.
- There is historic expansion of benefits and services for toxin exposed veterans.
Another major area of success is in education. He canceled loans that were unbearable and increased funding for scholarships.
- More than 40 million borrowers benefitted from historical student debt relief for middle- and working -class families.
- Biden increased the maximum value of Pell Grants by $900.
This presidency also has improved the quality of American life by
- Implementing the first meaningful gun violence reduction legislation in 30 years.
- Protecting marriage for LGBTQ+ and interracial couples.
- Issuing executive orders protecting reproductive rights.
- Advancing equity and racial justice, including historic criminal justice reform.
- Signing the most significant gun violence prevention legislation in nearly 30 years.
- Violent crimes, especially homicides, have fallen. Biden has encouraged states to use stimulus money on law enforcement. Under Trump homicides rose substantially. The U.S. was in the midst of its worst spasm of violence in decades when Biden took office, with the homicide rate rising to 29% in 2020. It started to fall in the autumn of 2022, then an additional 11.8% drop last year — the sharpest on record, according to estimates by AH Datalytics.
Biden delivered on the most aggressive climate and environmental justice agenda in American history. Green spending is booming, but it’s still not enough. The goal of net-zero emissions by 2050 requires $1 trillion in transition investment now. He is rebuilding our infrastructure with investments in all 50 states, D.C., territories, and throughout the tribal nations.
Basically, more people are working than at any point in American history. Households are prospering. The ever-widening gap between the poor and the super-rich is beginning to close. More rights were extended to the people, even though the Supreme Court destroyed reproductive rights recently. Under Biden democracy has been thriving in spite of damaging radical opposition.
Michael Moore has summed up Biden’s presidency very well:
There has been more action taken, through executive orders and legislation, to protect the environment, more serious funding to lift millions out of poverty, more support for labor unions, libraries, single mothers and college students deep in debt. And he has had this fervent, almost religious zeal to fight greed and obscene profits due to a true compassion he has for those dealt a bad hand in life — and he has had more of all of that than all the good presidents like Kennedy, Obama, and Carter were able to muster.
Based on data from the White House and Bloomberg. Additional data from Michael Moore on Substack.
Jeanette E. Sherbondy is a retired anthropology professor from Washington College and has lived here since 1986. In retirement she has been active with the Kent County Historical Society and Sumner Hall, one of the organizers of Legacy Day, and helped get highway /historical markers recognizing Henry Highland Garnet. She published an article on her ethnohistorical research of the free Black village, Morgnec.
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