One Year, 14 Metrics: The State of Biden’s Presidency
President Joe Biden embarks on his second year in office with one global crisis (the pandemic) fading and another (Russia’s invasion of Ukraine) escalating. Previously, his administration oversaw a robust economic recovery that veered into inflationary overdrive, stressing consumers with higher prices for everything from housing and food to cars and gasoline. Biden’s legislative agenda scored a successful infrastructure spending package, then stalled with the demise of his $2 trillion Build Back Better plan. As his State of the Union address nears, Bloomberg Opinion columnists evaluated Biden’s first year in office through a series of metrics that will serve as our guide to the administration’s progress throughout his second year — and beyond.
The Metrics: Energy | Household Wealth | Labor Force | Supply Chain | Markets | Electric Cars | Health Coverage | Immigration | Global Confidence | Crime | Inflation | Climate Engagement | Job Approval | Tax Refunds
Gas Prices Are Rising. Ukraine May Make It Worse.
Russia’s assault on Ukraine is a classic geopolitical crisis. That usually translates into an energy crisis for the White House.
Americans no longer spend a lot at the gas pump, but they’re reminded of the price every time they drive. At 3.8%, fuel, electricity and power’s share of average disposable personal income in January was back to where it was in late 2018, when the former guy ran things. That’s nowhere near the spike of 2008 or the panic of the late 1970s. Rising wages and vehicle efficiency mean $3 gasoline isn’t the scourge it once was.
Yet its psychological impact, paired with rising monthly utility bills and the sheer pace of increase, make it a growing problem. Gas prices add to broader inflation and provide an easy narrative to attack Biden’s decarbonization agenda as unaffordable. Since motor fuel represents about 60% of the energy basket, its path from here to November’s midterms is the most critical — and its cost was rising already even before Russia’s tanks rolled in and oil nosed above $100 a barrel. If prices don’t ease, Biden will have a difficult time convincing voters they’re better off.
Liam Denning
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More Broadly, Biden’s Boom Has Hit a Wall
Americans are finally feeling richer. Savings were boosted by pandemic relief payments, while years of stock market gains (even considering recent declines) and a nationwide housing boom have increased their wealth. Household net worth as a percentage of disposable income soared to a record high during the first year of Biden’s presidency. This rise in financial flexibility has allowed Americans to quit the jobs they don’t like, retire early and send children to their dream schools.
Financial freedom is a fragile concept, however, and inflation is proving to be a spoiler. The S&P 500’s relentless advance since March 2020 has stalled in anticipation of interest rate hikes by the Federal Reserve, and that’s expected to cool the housing market as the cost of mortgage lending soars. While much of this is beyond Biden’s control, it will still shape Americans’ view of his management of the economy. No president wants to preside over an era of declining personal wealth.
Shuli Ren
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Men Are Losing Ground in the Workforce
Men who don’t work during their prime years are a big problem for the economy and society. The share of prime-age men (ages 25 to 54) who are in the labor force — who either have a job or are looking for work — has been falling since the 1960s. Back then, more than 97% of prime-age men were in the labor force. But after each subsequent recession, many men who lost their jobs didn’t return to work. We haven’t seen the same trend for women.
As more men left their jobs during the pandemic, the labor force participation rate for prime-age men hit a historic low of 86.4%. Now that we are well into Biden’s recovery, many men have still not come back to work. Though it’s improved, the participation rate is still lower than it was during the last major recession.
Allison Schrager
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Supply Chains Still Aren’t Back to Normal
Note: An index level of zero is average, and values are the number of standard deviations above or below average.
The supply-chain logjams bedeviling essentially every important corner of the economy reflect in large part America’s robust post-Covid recovery and the unprecedented shift in spending toward physical goods. The Port of Los Angeles processed 10.7 million 20-foot equivalent shipping containers last year, surpassing the previous record set in 2018 by 13%. The system simply wasn’t built to handle such high demand. That’s cold comfort, though, for consumers who can’t find the items they want on shelves or for companies struggling to get the components they need to build their products.
The U.S. supply chain is controlled by private entities — including port operators, labor unions, the rail and trucking industries, and the large shippers that rely on their services. That limits what the Biden administration can actually do in the short term to mitigate the bottlenecks. The White House has trumpeted efforts to act as a deal broker between various players that often hadn’t coordinated before while also proclaiming the longer-term benefits of the $550 billion infrastructure bill. The West Coast ports appear to be slowly chipping away at the cargo backlog, and CEOs have increasingly offered anecdotal reports of improvements. But those remain incremental, and the timeline for broad-based normalization keeps getting pushed out.
Brooke Sutherland
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The Greenback Has Biden’s Back So Far
It’s said that a nation’s currency is not much different from a company’s share price in that it’s the best indicator of investor sentiment. And if that’s the case, then Biden has shareholders in America feeling pretty good. The Federal Reserve’s Trade Weighted Real Broad Dollar Index jumped 6.39% in 2021, recovering all the losses — and then some — that the greenback suffered during President Donald Trump’s term. Since the U.S. abandoned the gold standard in 1971, only President Ronald Reagan enjoyed a bigger gain in the dollar in the first year of his first term than Biden, with the gauge rising 6.83% in 1981.
There is no doubt, as former Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin declared in the mid-1990s, that a strong dollar is ultimately in the best interests of the U.S. That’s because it acts as a store of value, attracting the foreign capital that helps America service its budget deficit and keeping borrowing costs lower than they otherwise would be. Indeed, foreign central banks and institutions bought $668.7 billion of U.S. Treasury securities in 2021, the most in any year since 2010, according to the Treasury Department. The dollar has only strengthened this year as global investors sought the safety of U.S. assets amid escalating tensions in Ukraine.
Robert Burgess
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America’s Ambition on EVs Has Never Been Higher
As President Biden declared a day after the Super Bowl featured a half dozen ads for electric vehicles: “The future of the auto industry is electric.” Perhaps nothing encapsulates his administration’s focus on infrastructure, climate and Build Back Better than the growth of electric-vehicle sales in the U.S. The administration has set a target of 50% for all vehicle sales to be electric in 2030. The next three years represent a third of that time period, so Biden will have a chance to substantially influence progress by steering federal funds toward projects that help pave the way toward his goal.
Last year, 435,000 electric vehicles were sold in the U.S. — roughly a 3% share of the auto market. Over the past five years, EV sales have grown by an average of 22% a year. With the auto industry now beginning to put its collective muscle behind the production and advertising of electric vehicles, we should expect to see strong growth between now and 2024. Just how strong will depend on how the industry, and the administration, negotiates everything from supply chains to consumer demand to the build-out of electric infrastructure.
If electric vehicles commanded 10% of U.S. market share at the end of Biden’s term in 2024 — 1.6 million vehicles out of total auto sales of 16 million — that would be considered solid progress; 12% or more would be great; 8% or less would be disappointing.
Conor Sen
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Public Health-Care Coverage Has Expanded
Note: Preliminary data starting January 2019; 2021 data are as of September.
Biden is delivering on his campaign promise to reverse the decline in health-care coverage under the Trump administration. Some 14.5 million people enrolled in public health plans for 2022, a record-setting figure that included 5.8 million people who were new to the marketplace. Customers saw monthly premiums fall by 23% compared with the period before the American Rescue Plan expanded subsidies and tax credits available to many enrollees.
Biden’s strategy for hitting those record-high numbers was straightforward: Restore funding to programs that make it easier for people to know about and sign up for public health insurance. One of Biden’s first acts in office was to sign an executive order intended to improve access to coverage under the Affordable Care Act. The order called for opening a special enrollment period starting in February 2021, supported by a significant budget to publicize it. To keep up the momentum, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services directed $80 million to health-care navigators, who help people find and enroll in the right plans. That same program had received just $10 million during Donald Trump’s final year in office.
Lisa Jarvis
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Border Crossings Jumped, the Court System Stalled
Note: Data for fiscal years ending Sept. 30.
The 1.66 million migrants seeking to cross the U.S.-Mexico border without authorization in the 12 months through September were the highest since 2000. But that seemingly bracing indictment of the administration’s immigration enforcement at the Southwest border is a bum rap.
Concerns about an “invasion” ignore two facts. First, changes in record-keeping make the statistical comparison spurious. Second, Customs and Border Patrol has greatly reduced the number of migrants who manage to sneak in. The Migration Policy Institute estimates that the number of successful unlawful entries in 2021 was less than one-fourth the total in 2000.
That doesn’t let the administration off the hook for some badly needed fixes. The immigration court backlog that creates incentives for unqualified asylum seekers has grown. The hiring of immigration judges has lagged. And interior enforcement has fallen off a cliff. Addressing such problems would bolster deterrence, which doesn’t have to be inhumane to be successful.
James Gibney
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America’s Global Image Got a Boost
Any U.S. president would surely trade popularity abroad for higher domestic poll numbers. But the goodwill Biden has recovered among U.S. allies counts as a significant strength.
Polling by the Pew Research Center has measured global confidence in American leaders since George W. Bush’s first term. A few months into his presidency, Biden commanded numbers approaching the highs of the Barack Obama years. The acclaim reflected both relief — only 10% of Germans expected Donald Trump to do the right thing in world affairs — and recognition of Biden’s decency and deep-seated respect for allies and multilateral engagement.
Much has happened since then. The Afghanistan debacle severely dented the administration’s reputation for competence. Asian allies are frustrated at Biden’s unwillingness to engage on trade. Most important, how effectively Biden rallies the world to punish Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine could determine his legacy.
Nisid Hajari
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Homicides Increased, Especially in Cities
Not long after they emerged from the Covid-19 lockdowns of early 2020, Americans began shooting and killing each other at rates not seen in decades. The increase slowed in 2021, but once the final numbers are in, there will probably have been more homicides relative to population in the U.S. than in any year since 1996.
This wave of shootings and killings began before Biden took office in January 2021, and many broader measures of crime have not shown increases. But the sense that crime is out of control has become a drag on the president’s approval ratings, and Biden has made combating gun violence a priority. His administration is trying to crack down on gun trafficking and is providing funds for policing and other local crime-prevention efforts.
National homicide data are released by the Federal Bureau of Investigation with substantial lags, so we’ll use the year-to-date murder comparison compiled by AH Datalytics from police reports in 99 cities to track the nation’s progress or lack thereof. One caution: Homicide rates rose more in big cities than elsewhere in 2020, so the city-centric AH Datalytics numbers may overstate the national rate of increase.
Justin Fox
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Inflation Isn’t Biden’s Fault, But He Can Do More to Fix It
When the president called inflation “a great asset,” everyone knew he was being sarcastic: High rates of price inflation are bad not only for an economy but also for the political prospects of incumbents. And the measured rate of U.S. price inflation recently hit 7.5%, a 40-year high.
In fairness, this high rate of inflation is not the fault of the Biden administration alone. The pandemic, which preceded Biden, damaged many supply chains. Nonetheless, the administration did dump about $2 trillion worth of stimulus into a recovering economy, against the advice of some top macroeconomists. U.S. inflation rates are higher than in most other Western countries.
The good news is that the administration can do something about this. Markets believe that the Fed is planning several rate hikes for 2022. Here’s hoping that Biden’s Fed picks are sincere with their words against inflation, and that Biden gives the Fed appropriate political cover for a return to quasi-normalcy on the inflation front.
Tyler Cowen
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Climate Action Is Back in the Conversation
Biden has made climate a central issue for his administration but has struggled to push through his sweeping plans. His initial proposal — which would have devoted some $555 billion to climate and clean energy, an unprecedented financial effort to catch up with greener rivals — collapsed after extended political wrangling in Washington. To meet his target of cutting greenhouse gas emissions by at least 50% from 2005 levels by 2030, and of sticking to the Paris Agreement and helping Democrats meet some of their climate ambitions, Biden needs speed — and he needs a deal in Congress.
The good news is that there is increasingly strong voter support for just the kind of action Biden is trying to take. A study carried out by the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication and the George Mason University Center for Climate Change Communication suggests people are more worried than ever. Americans who say they are “alarmed,” the most engaged category in the survey, make up almost double the proportion they did five years ago and now outnumber the “dismissive” by more than 3 to 1. Crucially, they are also more supportive of pledges and change. While only 1 in 10 voters contacted a government official in the last 12 months to urge action, three times that many said they were now willing to participate in campaigns. Republicans remain concerned about the negative impact of a transition to a low-carbon world, but even those voters want more research and climate-friendly energy policies, such as incentives to make buildings more efficient. Biden just needs those people’s elected representatives to get with the program.
Clara Ferreira Marques
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Democrats Are Dragging With an Unpopular President
In the 1980s, New York City Mayor Ed Koch used to ask people: “How’m I doing?” For presidents, the best measure of this — at least so far as what their constituents think — is approval ratings.
Since the 1940s, pollsters have asked Americans: “Do you approve or disapprove of the way [president’s name] is handling his job as president?” The answer in the fall of even-numbered years predicts both the performance of presidents in re-election campaigns and the president’s party in the midterms. Significant changes year to year in a president’s term are the norm, not the exception. Ronald Reagan’s approval rating fell to as low as 35% in early 1983; he recovered and won in a landslide in fall 1984. George H.W. Bush peaked at 85% in early 1991, then lost in November 1992.
Right now, Biden’s approval rating is around 42%, a slight improvement from its January low point. Expect any direct effects from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine to be short-lived: It appears the pandemic is the driving force behind U.S. public opinion right now, and the omicron wave is ebbing. If Biden doesn’t improve to the high 40s in the next few months, his party’s candidates risk a 2010-style bloodbath in November.
Jonathan Bernstein
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Voters Love Tax Refunds. They May Be Late This Year.
Note: Tax filing dates varied in 2020 and 2021 due to the pandemic.
Most Americans hate doing their taxes but love getting their tax refunds. A recent Bankrate survey found that 67% of those expecting a refund said it was important to their finances and planned to either save it, or use it to pay down debt or for daily expenses. This year’s tax filing season kicked off at the end of January, so it’s still too early to know how smooth — or rough — the refund process will be. Warnings from the IRS have been pretty dire, though, with agency officials saying they’re especially overwhelmed following pandemic-related challenges, years of underfunding, and additional duties such as administering stimulus payments.
Sure, Biden pushed to get the IRS more money as part of his Build Back Better plan, but that didn’t work out — and it’s not what voters will be thinking about come November. The IRS added a second “surge team” in February to help whittle the backlog and speed refunds. But if long delays still materialize, voters will only remember they had to wait to get their money back.
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