President Joe Biden’s top economic adviser is downplaying the chances of a recession hitting the US economy and touting inflation rates lower than the nation’s global peers.
White House National Economic Council Director Lael Brainard plans to credit Biden’s policies for those developments during a Wednesday speech to the Economic Club of New York. The address is part of a series of appearances by top administration officials aimed at burnishing the president’s economic record ahead of the 2024 election.
“Despite repeated forecasts that recession is just around the corner, the US recovery is solid, and inflation is down,” Brainard plans to say, according to prepared remarks. “The economy is defying predictions that inflation would not fall absent significant job destruction.”
Brainard’s speech comes hours after the White House received welcome news that US inflation hit a two-year low. Republicans have criticized spending legislation Biden has championed for fueling price increases, so the new data provides the president with fresh material to rebut those arguments.
Americans are still struggling with higher prices, and Biden receives poor ratings on the economy, a major political vulnerability that could hamper his effort to win a second term. The White House has sought to persuade Americans his policies are working by touting his platform, which it is calling Bidenomics.
“These economic gains did not happen by chance, and they will not be sustained absent a deliberate strategy,” Brainard plans to say.
Brainard is also expected to urge private-sector companies to “bring their markups back down” to help reduce inflation “after having raised them to unusually elevated levels over the past two years.”
Investments in clean energy, domestic semiconductor manufacturing and infrastructure projects contained in Biden’s signature legislation are already helping boost the economy, according to Brainard. They will help the US in the long term by making the the nation less vulnerable to global economic shocks, like a trade war with China or Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Past policy makers “failed to take action” to protect the nation from those threats, Brainard plans to say.
“It is vital to make sustained public investments in our own economic future, to safeguard strong pathways to the middle class for American workers in communities around the country, and to ensure our supply chains are diversified,” she is expected to say.
___
© 2023 Bloomberg L.P
Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
