Next week will be one and a quarter years since Joe Biden assumed the presidency on Jan. 20, 2021. On July 20, every American should look within and ask: “Am I better off than I was 18 months ago?”
To Biden’s credit, the unemployment rate has fallen from 6.4% when he took office to 3.6% in June. Today’s figure is a notch higher than the 3.5% joblessness that Americans enjoyed in February 2020, thanks to President Donald Trump’s Republican tax cuts, deregulation, energy dominance, and other pro-growth initiatives.
Tragically, just a month later, COVID-19 padlocked earth’s economy and capsized so much of the progress that Trump had achieved.
Biden has also made virtually every other aspect of life worse. It is amazing to see how quickly and deeply Biden has demolished the USA with his incompetent leadership and far-left public policies.
The latest data confirms the destruction that he has caused with his fellow Democrats:
- Inflation was 1.4% in January 2021, year over year. This was the highest increase in Consumer Price Index since November 1981, at 9.1% by June 2022.
- Gross domestic product grew 6.4% in 2021’s first quarter. In the first quarter 2022, GDP fell 1.6%.
- The Dow Jones Industrial Average was 31,188 Jan. 20, 2021. The Dow closed Wednesday at 30.722. Biden has seen a decline in pension savings, 401(k), and other investment portfolios.
- The Conference Board’s Consumer Confidence Index measures short-term expectations for income, business, and labor markets. That metric has slid from 92.5 in January 2021 to 66.4 last month—its lowest level since March 2013.
- The National Federation of Independent Business’ Small Business Optimism Index has retreated on Biden’s watch from 95.0 to 89.5—its weakest showing since January 2013 under the Obama-Biden administration. The federation observed: “Small-business owners expecting better business conditions over the next six months decreased seven points to a net negative 61%, the lowest level recordedThe 48-year study. Expectations for better conditions have worsened every month this year.”
- The National Association of Realtors’ Housing Affordability Index has waned from a sanguine 187.2 in January 2021 to a worrisome 102.5 this past May, as home prices and mortgage costs rose in tandem.
- After Biden’s presidency, West Texas Intermediate crude oil sold for $53.24 a barrel. It sold Wednesday for $96.87—up 82%. As Biden arrived, a gallon of regular gasoline cost $2.39. It hit $5.01 before easing to $4.63 on Wednesday—up 93.7% since Trump jetted off to Mar-a-Lago.
- Border Patrol agents apprehended 754,538 illegal aliens during Trump’s final 16 months in office (Oct. 1, 2019, through Jan. 31, 2021—including Biden’s first 11 days). In Biden’s first full 16 months in power (Feb. 1, 2021, through May 31), Border Patrol confronted a stunning 2,975,135 illegal aliens—up a staggering 394%.
According to a Monmouth University poll, 42% believed the nation was on a right track in January 2021 while 51% believed it was on a wrong track. This month, Monmouth reported, “Just 10% of Americans say the country is headed in the right direction, while 88% say it is on the wrong track. This marks an all-time low for this question going back to 2013.”
All of this helps explain why the Real Clear Politics survey average registers Biden’s job approval at 38.5%, barely ahead of Trump’s 38.0% as he left office. Siena College’s pollsters this week found Biden’s job approval at 33% overall and at just 62% with blacks, 32% among Hispanics, and a cataclysmic 25% for independents.
Biden has done something remarkable: To have brought America down so quickly is an extraordinary achievement.
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