President Joe Biden praised his job creation record in Philadelphia on Monday, as inflation continues to hurt the pockets of everyday Americans.
The president gave the remarks as part of a speech commenting on the importance of workers in the economy, according to ABC News. The president laid out his administration’s track record on infrastructure and praised the economic recovery from the coronavirus pandemic. The president hoped to gain traction with working class voters that the Democrats have struggled with in recent years.
“This Labor Day we’re celebrating jobs, good-paying jobs, jobs you can raise a family on, union jobs,” Biden said.
President Joe Biden celebrates Labor Day in Philadelphia as he courts one of his most important constituencies at a moment when the labor movement is attempting to reassert its strength. https://t.co/WpdDdzicZC pic.twitter.com/dcdCHQQJcw
— CNN (@CNN) September 4, 2023
Biden was asked if he believed a strike was looming. The president said that he did not. United Auto Workers (UAW) President Shawn Fain said he was “shocked” by these comments from Biden and added the president “must know something we don’t know.” (RELATED: World Economic Forum Is Totally Clueless About 2023’s ‘Top Risks’)
“I think we’ve got a long ways to go,” Fain told ABC News. “All three are required to have an agreement done by Sept. 14. That’s the deadline for all three. And if they don’t there will be action.”
The president also touched on the role on middle-class workers in the economy, stating that when this group thrives, “everyone does well.”
Biden’s praise of the economy contrasts with data showing Americans feeling consistently gloomy about their personal financial status amid high inflation. In April, a CNBC poll showed that two-thirds of Americans believed inflation was depleting their paychecks. Inflation also rose in July after declining from a staggering 9.1% in June 2022. The Consumer Price Index (CPI) found that the cost of staples such as energy and food ticked up 3.2% on the annual basis in July, as opposed to the 3% mark in June.
E.J. Antoni, a research fellow at the Heritage Foundation’s Grover M. Hermann Center for the Federal Budget, told the Daily Caller News Foundation that inflation has become a much more permanent fixture of the economy than the Biden administration wants to acknowledge.
“Inflation has become much more ingrained in the economy than the White House, Congress, or the Fed want to admit,” Antoni said. “Combined with slowing economic growth, we have the perfect recipe for stagflation.”
“Americans have less to spend, having worked almost completely through pandemic savings at this point. And with the student loan moratorium ending in October, more consumption will be sucked out of the economy,” Peter Earle, economist at the American Institute for Economic Research, told the Daily Caller News Foundation in July.
“The sad thing is Americans are locked in this fight with inflation and are bracing for recession. Yesterday, the consumer confidence report came out. Stunning — it dropped precipitously, and what was really intriguing about this one is 69% of Americans are still bracing for a recession. And the folks with households over $100,000, they actually complained the most. Their confidence dropped the most,” Fox Business analyst Charles Payne told Fox host Bret Baier on Aug. 30.