For half of Biden’s presidency, wages did not outpace inflation. That reversed itself, but Americans see wage increases as the result of their own talent and inflation increases as a government failing. The primary channel to tame inflation, Federal Reserve interest rate hikes, increased the cost of borrowing, making big purchases like mortgages and car loans more expensive. The cost of living in 2024 was simply higher than in 2020 across the board.
The pandemic’s pop-up safety net, with enhanced unemployment benefits and expansion of the Medicaid rolls and rental assistance and increased food stamp benefits and paid leave and child care programs,
all ran out under Biden. Student loan payments were
reinstated under Biden after being paused for three years. The administration and the Democratic Congress passed a groundbreaking monthly advance Child Tax Credit; it ran for exactly six months, without any connection to Biden or the Democrats who pushed it through (the direct deposits contained the
indecipherable code “IRS TREAS 310”). Recipients associated the temporary relief with all the other temporary relief that vanished during Biden’s presidency.
The behind-closed-doors process of who created these pandemic welfare programs in Washington and who was responsible for them going away (hello, Joe Manchin) was never articulated. All a young mother of two knew is that she got help when the virus appeared, and then it all disappeared precisely when everything got more expensive, while billions were sent abroad to finance disastrous wars and rampant slaughter. Anyone who says that voters punched a great economy in the face ignores these realities.
