President Biden plans to run for reelection on “Bidenomics,” his economic plan that aims to build the economy from the middle out and the bottom up. In essence, Biden is betting that he can create jobs through his signature investments in infrastructure, semiconductor manufacturing, and clean energy, and that voters will reward this progress and return him for a second term in the White House. Yet whether the Administration can deliver high-quality, union jobs that pay good wages and provide benefits, and receive a political boost for doing so, remains an open question.
Optimism may be warranted: Biden’s industrial policies—the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA), the CHIPS and Science Act, and the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA)—include several strong job-quality requirements and are likely to create millions of jobs and boost GDP. Research strongly suggests that Biden is likely to reap electoral rewards if industrial policy creates enough jobs with sufficiently high incomes to overcome the negative effects of inflation.
The above excerpt was originally published in Democracy.
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