As people try to critique Biden’s economic agenda, they should keep this graphic in mind. Incumbents everywhere suffered because of a global inflation surge. Democrats held up better than any of them in part because economic performance here was better than anywhere else. That said, I wish we had enacted the housing, care, and child tax credit elements in Build Back Better so we would have had concrete cost-of-living benefits to run on. People should reflect on which part of the Democratic Party denied us those agenda items.

When Biden came into office, experts were projecting a long, sluggish recovery. Instead, we've had the fastest and most equitable recovery since WW2. Why?

In a new piece, I argue it's because Biden and Democrats passed the American Rescue Plan. 1/

democracyjournal.org/magazine/72/th… Consider the hole America was in when Biden took office -- and all the uncertainty we were facing as a country. That was the backdrop against which the President and his team had to design a recovery bill. 2/

So much wrong with this it’s hard to know where to start.

Two sets of student loan borrowers are currently getting relief. The first: public servants, like members of the military. Under a law signed by President Bush, they get loans cancelled after ten years of service. 1/

https://twitter.com/sullycnbc/status/1760546907074556237

For a long time, that law wasn’t administered properly. People did their ten years, submitted the paperwork, and didn’t get relief. The Biden Administration went back and fixed it, giving public servants the debt relief they’re entitled to under the law. 2/

This week’s edition of Biden v. Trump on the issues: higher education.

A thread on what they did as President and their very different plans for a possible second term. 1/

https://x.com/BharatRamamurti/status/1757077252804645087?s=20

Federal Pell Grants help address the cost of attending college. The typical student receiving a Pell Grant comes from a family making under $30,000 a year.

Pell Grants used to cover ~80% of public college costs. Over time, it dropped to only ~25%. 2/

Since the media seems more focused on other topics, I'm launching a new recurring feature: Biden v. Trump on the actual issues -- what they did as president and what they would try to do in a second term.

First up: taxes. 1/ One of the few pieces of legislation Trump passed as president was the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA). The centerpiece of that bill was a massive, permanent reduction in the corporate tax rate from 35% to 21%. 2/

The common idea that declining purchasing power is what’s producing economic dissatisfaction seems quite clearly wrong. The analysis below doesn’t even account for large government transfers in 2021 (checks and tax cuts) that further aided the median household. 1/

https://twitter.com/steverattner/status/1714685187273949370

As a result, people should consider alternative explanations. The large disparity between people’s satisfaction with their own financial condition (fairly high) and the broader state of the economy (fairly low) suggests that media narrative plays at least some role. 2/

Last week, @POTUS wrote about the strength of our economic recovery.

Here are some graphs that show just how far we've come since he took office. 1/

wsj.com/articles/never… When @POTUS took office, the unemployment rate was over 6%. The Congressional Budget Office projected a slow recovery -- one that would take us until 2026 to get below 4% unemployment.

Instead, we got there by 2022 and are now at 16 straight months of sub-4% unemployment. 2/

With all the focus on the debt limit recently, I wanted to spotlight the major progress @POTUS and the Administration have made in recent weeks to improve air travel for Americans. 1/ On Friday, @TheJusticeDept scored a huge win for competition in the airline industry, successfully blocking a deal between JetBlue and American that increased fares and reduced choice for travelers. 2/
cnn.com/2023/05/19/bus…

This implies that a lot of the benefits of the debt relief plan are going to JDs, or MDs, or MBAs, such that excluding them could have substantially lowered the cost of the plan.

Is that actually the case? Luckily there is useful data on this. The answer is no. 1/

https://twitter.com/crampell/status/1564017070802706432

Here is data from the Education Department on borrowers who graduated in 2014/15 and 2015/16.

What percentage of borrowers have a JD? 1%
MBA? 2.6%
MD (which isn't even pictured because it's so low on the list)? 0.5%

A few facts on Pell Grant recipients who have student debt:

-They make up 60% of student loan borrowers (27M)

-Nearly all come from families making under 60k; two-thirds come from families making under 30k

-98% currently make under 100k a year

1/ -Although they make up 60% of borrowers, they make up 90% of the ~8M borrowers in default

-The Pell Grant borrowers with the *highest* incomes are more likely to default than the non-Pell Grant borrowers with the *lowest* incomes

2/

Since there appears to be some confusion about yesterday’s CPI report, let’s answer some questions.

“According to the CPI report, how much did prices rise in July?”

0%

1/ “Does that mean that prices for everything were flat last month?"

No, the price of some things went up. But the price of some other things (gas, apparel, appliances) went down. CPI measures the prices of a broad set of goods and services, and on net, those prices were flat. 2/

New data released this week show that 2021 was the best year for small business job creation *on record.*

Small businesses with less than 50 employees created almost 3 million jobs, representing nearly half of the private sector jobs created last year. 1/ This data is just more evidence of the small business boom under the Biden-Harris Administration.

We previously highlighted data showing that Americans applied to start a record-high 5.4 million new businesses in 2021. 2/
whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/…

With all the focus on inflation, did you know that @POTUS signed a bill into law yesterday that could help reduce the cost of a variety of products? Here's a brief explanation. 1/ A lot of goods come to America from Asia on ocean carriers. During the pandemic, the major ocean carrier alliances raised the price of shipping by as much as 1000% -- that’s more than tenfold. 2/

Let's address this argument:

A big reason gas prices are up is because companies cut refinery capacity in 2020 *under the last administration.* US refinery capacity went down by 800,000 barrels/day that year. Refiners are now making bigger margins, raising prices at the pump. 1/

https://twitter.com/FinancialCmte/status/1535343704936005632

The second big reason gas prices are up is Putin's actions in Ukraine and the global response raising oil prices. Pump prices are up more than $1.60 since then. Our response had the backing of Republicans, as Jesse details here:

https://twitter.com/JesseLee46/status/1535275861791985666?s=20&t=nFF1ltlQAg37pKwLl34DIw

More evidence that our inflation challenge in the US is primarily being driven by global supply issues, including Russia's actions in Ukraine, and not a spike in demand. That's why nearly every leading economy in the world is facing record-high inflation.

https://twitter.com/Markzandi/status/1533451827009691648

The key difference is that the American Rescue Plan has generated a world-beating economic recovery for the US, allowing us to face this global challenge from a unique position of strength.

The President has not made a decision on debt cancellation. But I've now seen this analysis cited twice in the Washington Post, so I want to explain how misleading it is based on the way it assesses the "benefits" of debt cancellation. 1/ A straightforward way to assess the distributive effect of cancellation might be to ask, "how much of the cancelled debt is held by people in the bottom half of the income spectrum vs. the top half?"

That is not what this analysis does. 2/

As @POTUS notes in his op-ed today, the "U.S. is in a better economic position than almost any other country" to deal with what is truly a global problem with inflation. A not-so-short thread on how widespread those global inflation problems are. 1/

wsj.com/articles/my-pl… A 31-year high in Canada. 2/

cbc.ca/news/business/…

There are always risks, but it's useful to emphasize where the consensus is now:

1) "77 economists contributing to Bloomberg predict that US GDP will outperform the Group of Seven developed nations during the next three years."

bloomberg.com/opinion/articl… 2) "All 56 economists who provide quarterly forecasts not only see steady growth over seven consecutive quarters but also the absence of a contraction."

Here are some important findings from today's Fed survey of household financial well-being:

1) The percentage of Americans saying they were doing well financially hit the highest level since the survey began 2013.

federalreserve.gov/newsevents/pre… 2) "Financial well-being also increased among all the racial and ethnic groups measured in the survey, with a particularly large increase among Hispanic adults."

NEW: The @POTUS budget calls for cracking down on executive compensation practices that allow executives to enrich themselves by pursuing stock buybacks.
A thread with data on why these reforms would be good for workers, shareholders, and our economy.
nytimes.com/2022/03/28/bus… Here’s the basic problem: senior executives have huge financial incentives to dedicate corporate profits to buybacks. Executives are compensated mostly in stock, and stock prices tend to jump right after a buyback is announced.

NEW: The Biden-Harris Administration delivered small business relief to the businesses and communities the previous Administration left behind.

A few highlights to follow:

whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/… As context, recall that the previous Administration made a few key policy choices that resulted in bigger and more well-connected businesses getting more relief:

coronavirus.house.gov/news/press-rel…