The Biden presidency inherited a succession of unprecedented crises. These crises affected the entire world and produced much worse economic outcomes in peer countries: We had a once-in-a-century pandemic that killed millions of people and shut down entire industries. As president, you get credit for things when things are good, and you get blamed when things are bad, even when they are out of your control.
It is worth taking a look at what, exactly, Americans have been hearing about the economy over the past three years
We saw this in 2019 when Donald Trump had done nothing to help the American economy. In fact, he tried his best to hurt it, with massive tax cuts for the wealthy and a ridiculous trade war. But he still presided over an economy that was finally recovering after a financial crisis, and he got the credit.
We also saw it in 2020, to a certain extent, when Covid annihilated the U.S. economy — and Trump lost. Once Biden took over — basically from the very moment he was sworn in — we were inundated with negative messaging about the economy. Some of it was rooted in real crises that the administration had to tackle. Some of it was overhyped.
Now, this collective freakout about the economy happened across the media ecosystem, but it was most pronounced on Fox News. So it is worth taking a look at what, exactly, Americans have been hearing about the economy over the past three years, and compare that with actual circumstances and how the Biden White House has responded.
Let’s start with the labor issue: Biden took office amid an unprecedented global pandemic. Remember, there was not even a widely available vaccine when he was sworn in. As a result, the Biden administration continued the economic stimulus from the Trump pandemic response, including additional direct cash payments and an additional $300 a week in unemployment benefits.
Fox News’ response to labor shortages amid a deadly global pandemic was endless coverage about how, suddenly, no one wanted to work anymore.
To be fair, some businesses did have trouble finding workers. It was a real challenge for the White House, especially when the Delta variant hit that summer and more than a 100,000 people were still being hospitalized every week. But then what happened? Well, the Biden administration continued its vaccination campaign and the virus subsided to a level where people were comfortable going to work in person. Equally as importantly, his bold agenda of economic stimulus worked. Unemployment dropped massively, from 6.3 percent when Biden took office to 3.7 percent in the last jobs report. People definitely want to work.
Unemployment dropped massively, from 6.3 percent when Biden took office to 3.7 percent in the last jobs report.
Once the jobs numbers improved, Fox News mostly moved off the “nobody wants to work anymore” narrative. There was a new boogeyman in town: the supply chain. These issues were also very real, especially in the aftermath of Covid. But Fox took the opportunity, starting all the way back in October 2021, to spin the yarn that Biden was responsible for the supply chain issues and, apparently, doing it to ruin Christmas for America’s children.
But months before Fox started its latest war on Christmas, Biden had put together a task force to combat supply chain issues. By the fall, he announced that the Port of Los Angeles would be working 24/7 to clear the backlog, as well as that additional investments from USPS and FedEx would make sure packages got moving. By November, the heads of a bunch of major retail companies were shouting from the rooftops that no supply chain issue was affecting holiday shopping. In fact, holiday spending in 2021 grew nearly 15 percent from the year before, shattering all kinds of records. Crisis averted: The presents were under the tree.
It wasn’t just Christmas presents, either. Early last year, Biden administration was also dealing with a very real and very scary shortage of baby formula. They put together another plan to increase supply and fix allocation issues, which were caused by a shuttered factory and a product recall. The White House later declared that production had actually increased year-over-year under its watch. By October, shelf stock rates were back where they had been before the crisis started.
At this point, Biden had been president for two years, and the midterm elections were approaching. Republicans did not have much to run on, especially after the Dobbs decision struck down abortion rights. Their best hope was to run on the economy, specifically inflation, which had been spiking because of the hot labor market and lingering disruptions from the pandemic.
Fox News did its level best to act as the messaging arm of the Republican Party, spending day after day after day talking about “eggflation.” The price of eggs is an interesting case, in that it really wasn’t about inflation at all. In early 2022, an avian flu outbreak killed tens of millions of egg-laying chickens. Yet another example of a supply crunch out of the president’s control. And guess what? The ship corrected course. Farmers raised new chickens, egg prices came right back down. Your omelet was no longer in danger.
Fox saved the big guns for “the pain at the pump.” Amid a major land war in Europe and a mass blockade of Russian oil, gas was averaging more than $5 a gallon. Now, for better or for worse (in my opinion, for worse), domestic oil production is booming under Biden. We’re producing more oil than Saudi Arabia and Russia. Gas prices are down from their peak last year, with the national average hovering at about $3.22 a gallon, the lowest in nearly a year following a steady decline.
The story of the Biden presidency so far has been this series of metaphorical meteors hitting the Earth, unexpected and in many cases unprecedented.
These days, you don’t really hear Fox News talking too much about the price of gas. Or eggs. Or baby formula. Or Christmas presents.
So the story of the Biden presidency so far has been this series of metaphorical meteors hitting the Earth, unexpected and in many cases unprecedented crises that the White House had to attend to. Each one has caused huge cycles of enormous, around-the-clock panic across the media.
In every case, the Biden administration attempted to do something about the problem. In many cases, they saw real, tangible success. They quietly did their job, then moved on to the next crisis.
That is not the message getting through on Fox News. No, the message on Fox is that the entire economy is going to collapse any minute now, and a recession is imminent.
Except that according to a recent survey of business economists, the overwhelming majority of them — more than 75 percent! — do not believe a recession is likely. The fundamentals of the economy are much sounder than you might think: GDP is booming, and more importantly, real wages are rising. This means wages are rising faster than inflation, allowing working people more purchasing power. In fact, the largest wage gains have happened in the bottom 40% of workers. The recession that Fox News promised is now far from certain.
We are left in this weird environment where people genuinely feel very bad about the economy. And the weird thing about the way that credit and blame works in the public consciousness: Presidents get blamed for the bad stuff and praised for the good. Even though the Fed, say, has more to do with cooling inflation that the White House does.
But Biden is not getting the praise he deserves. If you are evaluating presidential performance, you have to keep the rules consistent. Donald Trump and his buddies on Fox News want to praise him for the great economy from 2017 through 2019, while ignoring the 2020 disaster that unfolded under his watch. They want you to believe Trump’s term only lasted three years, then he just disappeared before Biden took over, when a bunch of bad stuff happened under his watch.
The record, however, shows that Trump oversaw the biggest job loss in American history, along with mass death and abject disaster. You might argue that was not all Trump’s fault — true enough. But then inflation and the supply chain and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and spiking gas prices and shipping backlogs are not Biden’s fault, either.
Biden got to work putting together an economic vision totally opposite to Trump’s. As Biden likes to say, an economy from the middle up and from the bottom up. It’s produced tangible benefits, and it has been the best economic performance of a president, under very difficult conditions, that this nation has seen since FDR.
OTTAWA – Canada’s unemployment rate held steady at 6.5 per cent last month as hiring remained weak across the economy.
Statistics Canada’s labour force survey on Friday said employment rose by a modest 15,000 jobs in October.
Business, building and support services saw the largest gain in employment.
Meanwhile, finance, insurance, real estate, rental and leasing experienced the largest decline.
Many economists see weakness in the job market continuing in the short term, before the Bank of Canada’s interest rate cuts spark a rebound in economic growth next year.
Despite ongoing softness in the labour market, however, strong wage growth has raged on in Canada. Average hourly wages in October grew 4.9 per cent from a year ago, reaching $35.76.
Friday’s report also shed some light on the financial health of households.
According to the agency, 28.8 per cent of Canadians aged 15 or older were living in a household that had difficulty meeting financial needs – like food and housing – in the previous four weeks.
That was down from 33.1 per cent in October 2023 and 35.5 per cent in October 2022, but still above the 20.4 per cent figure recorded in October 2020.
People living in a rented home were more likely to report difficulty meeting financial needs, with nearly four in 10 reporting that was the case.
That compares with just under a quarter of those living in an owned home by a household member.
Immigrants were also more likely to report facing financial strain last month, with about four out of 10 immigrants who landed in the last year doing so.
That compares with about three in 10 more established immigrants and one in four of people born in Canada.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 8, 2024.
The Canadian Institute for Health Information says health-care spending in Canada is projected to reach a new high in 2024.
The annual report released Thursday says total health spending is expected to hit $372 billion, or $9,054 per Canadian.
CIHI’s national analysis predicts expenditures will rise by 5.7 per cent in 2024, compared to 4.5 per cent in 2023 and 1.7 per cent in 2022.
This year’s health spending is estimated to represent 12.4 per cent of Canada’s gross domestic product. Excluding two years of the pandemic, it would be the highest ratio in the country’s history.
While it’s not unusual for health expenditures to outpace economic growth, the report says this could be the case for the next several years due to Canada’s growing population and its aging demographic.
Canada’s per capita spending on health care in 2022 was among the highest in the world, but still less than countries such as the United States and Sweden.
The report notes that the Canadian dental and pharmacare plans could push health-care spending even further as more people who previously couldn’t afford these services start using them.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 7, 2024.
Canadian Press health coverage receives support through a partnership with the Canadian Medical Association. CP is solely responsible for this content.
As Canadians wake up to news that Donald Trump will return to the White House, the president-elect’s protectionist stance is casting a spotlight on what effect his second term will have on Canada-U.S. economic ties.
Some Canadian business leaders have expressed worry over Trump’s promise to introduce a universal 10 per cent tariff on all American imports.
A Canadian Chamber of Commerce report released last month suggested those tariffs would shrink the Canadian economy, resulting in around $30 billion per year in economic costs.
More than 77 per cent of Canadian exports go to the U.S.
Canada’s manufacturing sector faces the biggest risk should Trump push forward on imposing broad tariffs, said Canadian Manufacturers and Exporters president and CEO Dennis Darby. He said the sector is the “most trade-exposed” within Canada.
“It’s in the U.S.’s best interest, it’s in our best interest, but most importantly for consumers across North America, that we’re able to trade goods, materials, ingredients, as we have under the trade agreements,” Darby said in an interview.
“It’s a more complex or complicated outcome than it would have been with the Democrats, but we’ve had to deal with this before and we’re going to do our best to deal with it again.”
American economists have also warned Trump’s plan could cause inflation and possibly a recession, which could have ripple effects in Canada.
It’s consumers who will ultimately feel the burden of any inflationary effect caused by broad tariffs, said Darby.
“A tariff tends to raise costs, and it ultimately raises prices, so that’s something that we have to be prepared for,” he said.
“It could tilt production mandates. A tariff makes goods more expensive, but on the same token, it also will make inputs for the U.S. more expensive.”
A report last month by TD economist Marc Ercolao said research shows a full-scale implementation of Trump’s tariff plan could lead to a near-five per cent reduction in Canadian export volumes to the U.S. by early-2027, relative to current baseline forecasts.
Retaliation by Canada would also increase costs for domestic producers, and push import volumes lower in the process.
“Slowing import activity mitigates some of the negative net trade impact on total GDP enough to avoid a technical recession, but still produces a period of extended stagnation through 2025 and 2026,” Ercolao said.
Since the Canada-United States-Mexico Agreement came into effect in 2020, trade between Canada and the U.S. has surged by 46 per cent, according to the Toronto Region Board of Trade.
With that deal is up for review in 2026, Canadian Chamber of Commerce president and CEO Candace Laing said the Canadian government “must collaborate effectively with the Trump administration to preserve and strengthen our bilateral economic partnership.”
“With an impressive $3.6 billion in daily trade, Canada and the United States are each other’s closest international partners. The secure and efficient flow of goods and people across our border … remains essential for the economies of both countries,” she said in a statement.
“By resisting tariffs and trade barriers that will only raise prices and hurt consumers in both countries, Canada and the United States can strengthen resilient cross-border supply chains that enhance our shared economic security.”
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 6, 2024.
