On Thursday night, President Joe Biden will deliver his election-year State of the Union address. A spate of new opinion polls released over the weekend highlighted the serious challenges facing him as he seeks reëlection: concerns about his age, the southern border, the Israel-Hamas war, and the economy. The RealClearPolitics poll average currently shows him trailing Donald Trump by two points in a head-to-head contest, and by 2.8 points when third-party candidates are included. It’s particularly alarming for the President that, with many voters still focussed on the rising cost of living, he hasn’t received much credit for an economic record that, in many ways, is impressive. According to the poll average, just 40.2 per cent of Americans approve of his handling of the economy, and 57.4 per cent disapprove. To improve his electoral prospects, Biden badly needs to turn those figures around. The State of the Union presents a much needed opportunity for him to talk to the American people about his economic record. Here, with apologies for my lame efforts to capture his folksy syntax, is a suggestion for how he might go about it:
Good evening, my fellow-Americans. Since I last spoke to you from this hallowed chamber of democracy, thirteen months ago, the U.S. economy has continued its strong recovery from the coronavirus pandemic. This time last year, many economists were predicting a recession following the Federal Reserve’s decision to raise interest rates in order to bring down inflation. But, far from slumping, the economy expanded at a faster rate in 2023 than it did in the previous year: 2.5 per cent, compared with 1.9 per cent. In the first three years of my Presidency, inflation-adjusted G.D.P. growth has averaged 3.4 per cent. I don’t want to belabor the point, but that compares with an average annual growth of less than one per cent under the other guy.
And here is another comparison, one you may have heard me make before: in economic terms, the United States is outpacing the rest of the developed world. Don’t take my word for it. Ask the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, which is a bunch of economic wonks from various countries who get to work in a nice, leafy part of Paris. According to the O.E.C.D.’s latest global economic report, which was released a few weeks ago, the U.S. economy easily outgrew the rest of the G7 bloc in 2023, with only Japan getting anywhere close. For 2024, the O.E.C.D. is predicting a repeat performance, with the U.S. expanding three and a half times as fast as the Euro area and twice as fast as Japan. If there were an Olympic gold medal for rebounding from the pandemic, Team U.S.A. would be receiving it.
Getting back to the home front, during the past twelve months job growth has also remained reassuringly robust. Between January, 2023, and January, 2024, employers increased their payrolls by more than 2.9 million. Thanks to a strong demand for workers, the unemployment rate stands at just 3.7 per cent. In fact, it’s been below four per cent for roughly two years now, which is something that hasn’t happened since the Beatles were still together and I was graduating from law school and going to work as a public defender in Wilmington.
Jobs, jobs, jobs. Over the years, you’ve probably heard me say how my father used to always tell me that a job is about more than a paycheck—it’s about your dignity, your respect. Well, thanks to the strength of the labor market, more and more Americans from historically disadvantaged groups have been able to find some of that dignity and respect—and a regular paycheck. Since September, 2022, the unemployment rate for Black Americans has been at or below six per cent. It hasn’t been this low for such an extended period since the Labor Department started keeping records, more than fifty years ago. The unemployment rate among Hispanics is only five per cent. Among Americans with disabilities, it’s 6.6 per cent, down from twelve per cent when I took office, in January, 2021.
Now, I’m not claiming that I, or any of my Democratic colleagues, deserve all the credit for these developments. A lot of the kudos should go to the enterprising Americans who created nearly 5.5 million new businesses last year—that’s another record—and to the countless hardworking Americans who have joined, or rejoined, the workforce since the pandemic relented. I’ve always said: nobody can match the American worker for enterprise and hard work. Nobody.
But healthy economic growth involves a partnership between the private sector and the public sector. And my Administration, together with Congress, has taken a number of unprecedented steps to boost the economy and make it stronger for the longer term, including passing the American Rescue Plan Act, the Inflation Reduction Act, the bipartisan infrastructure law, and the CHIPS Act. How have these pieces of legislation worked out? Well, one way to gauge the results is to look at the manufacturing sector. Last year, American manufacturers raised their spending on new plants and other facilities by more than sixty per cent. According to the Commerce Department statisticians, that was the biggest increase since Harry Truman was giving ’em hell from the Oval Office.
Of course, we need to balance these positive developments with the fact that too many Americans are still struggling to pay their bills, put food on their tables, and get ahead in life. We all know that over the past few years the cost of many essential household items—from food to car insurance and rent—has gone up and stayed up. High inflation has been a worldwide phenomenon, but that’s no consolation to American families who are having to change their buying habits, cancel their vacations, or postpone their plans of finding a new home.
Thankfully, over the past year and a half, the inflation rate has come down sharply: it’s now running at 3.1 per cent. The prices of some items that skyrocketed during 2021-22, including eggs, fuel oil, gasoline, and used cars, have fallen back somewhat, although they are still too high. Plus, thanks to the Inflation Reduction Act, hundreds of thousands of seniors are now paying a lot less for insulin than they used to. Under the old system, the average out-of-pocket cost for people on Medicare was about sixty-three dollars a month; today, it is capped at thirty-five dollars. For seniors on fixed incomes, that’s an important piece of cost relief, and the savings aren’t confined to Medicare. In last year’s State of the Union, I called for an extension of the thirty-five-dollars-a-month cap to all Americans, regardless of their age or insurance status. I’m glad to report that, at the start of this year, a number of major drug companies did adopt this policy, cutting their prices, in some cases, by more than seventy per cent. That’s good news!
But we’ve still got a lot of work to do. Prices remain too high for a lot of everyday goods. And I want to assure the American public that, if I am reëlected, my Administration will continue to do all it can to help relieve the cost burdens on hardworking Americans. In some cases, we’ll rely on existing legislation. For example, starting in 2025, all Medicare recipients will see their total prescription-drug costs capped at two thousand dollars per year. We’ll use other tactics, too, such as pressing corporations that have been padding their profits to pass along savings to their customers and using antitrust laws to boost competition. Just last week, the Federal Trade Commission sued to block a merger between two big supermarket chains on the grounds that it would lead to higher prices for consumers. That’s unacceptable. Also, we’ll look for new ways to tackle some of the big long-term challenges that the country needs to address, such as making college more affordable for low- and middle-income students; reducing the racial wealth gap; and helping first-time buyers to purchase a home.
So there’s a lot to be done, and I understand why so many people tell opinion pollsters that the economic recovery hasn’t filtered down to them. But, to conclude, I’d like to mention a bit of good news on that front. In December, a Wall Street Journal poll found that just thirty-four per cent of Americans believed their personal financial situation had moved in the right direction in the previous year. In a new Journal poll that was released on Sunday, this figure had moved up to forty-three per cent, a jump of nine points in two months. Of course, I’d like to see the number rise to well above fifty per cent, but the trend is moving in the right direction. My fellow-Americans, all the hard work of the past few years is starting to pay off. Let’s finish the job. ♦
Almost seven years since news broke of an alleged conspiracy to fix the price of packaged bread across Canada, the saga isn’t over: the Competition Bureau continues to investigate the companies that may have been involved, and two class-action lawsuits continue to work their way through the courts.
Here’s a timeline of key events in the bread price-fixing case.
Oct. 31, 2017: The Competition Bureau says it’s investigating allegations of bread price-fixing and that it was granted search warrants in the case. Several grocers confirm they are co-operating in the probe.
Dec. 19, 2017: Loblaw and George Weston say they participated in an “industry-wide price-fixing arrangement” to raise the price of packaged bread. The companies say they have been co-operating in the Competition Bureau’s investigation since March 2015, when they self-reported to the bureau upon discovering anti-competitive behaviour, and are receiving immunity from prosecution. They announce they are offering $25 gift cards to customers amid the ongoing investigation into alleged bread price-fixing.
Jan. 31, 2018: In court documents, the Competition Bureau says at least $1.50 was added to the price of a loaf of bread between about 2001 and 2016.
Dec. 20, 2019: A class-action lawsuit in a Quebec court against multiple grocers and food companies is certified against a number of companies allegedly involved in bread price-fixing, including Loblaw, George Weston, Metro, Sobeys, Walmart Canada, Canada Bread and Giant Tiger (which have all denied involvement, except for Loblaw and George Weston, which later settled with the plaintiffs).
Dec. 31, 2021: A class-action lawsuit in an Ontario court covering all Canadian residents except those in Quebec who bought packaged bread from a company named in the suit is certified against roughly the same group of companies.
June 21, 2023: Bakery giant Canada Bread Co. is fined $50 million after pleading guilty to four counts of price-fixing under the Competition Act as part of the Competition Bureau’s ongoing investigation.
Oct. 25 2023: Canada Bread files a statement of defence in the Ontario class action denying participating in the alleged conspiracy and saying any anti-competitive behaviour it participated in was at the direction and to the benefit of its then-majority owner Maple Leaf Foods, which is not a defendant in the case (neither is its current owner Grupo Bimbo). Maple Leaf calls Canada Bread’s accusations “baseless.”
Dec. 20, 2023: Metro files new documents in the Ontario class action accusing Loblaw and its parent company George Weston of conspiring to implicate it in the alleged scheme, denying involvement. Sobeys has made a similar claim. The two companies deny the allegations.
July 25, 2024: Loblaw and George Weston say they agreed to pay a combined $500 million to settle both the Ontario and Quebec class-action lawsuits. Loblaw’s share of the settlement includes a $96-million credit for the gift cards it gave out years earlier.
Sept. 12, 2024: Canada Bread files new documents in Ontario court as part of the class action, claiming Maple Leaf used it as a “shield” to avoid liability in the alleged scheme. Maple Leaf was a majority shareholder of Canada Bread until 2014, and the company claims it’s liable for any price-fixing activity. Maple Leaf refutes the claims.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 19, 2024.
Companies in this story: (TSX:L, TSX:MFI, TSX:MRU, TSX:EMP.A, TSX:WN)
TORONTO – Canada’s main stock index was up more than 250 points in late-morning trading, led by strength in the base metal and technology sectors, while U.S. stock markets also charged higher.
The S&P/TSX composite index was up 254.62 points at 23,847.22.
In New York, the Dow Jones industrial average was up 432.77 points at 41,935.87. The S&P 500 index was up 96.38 points at 5,714.64, while the Nasdaq composite was up 486.12 points at 18,059.42.
The Canadian dollar traded for 73.68 cents US compared with 73.58 cents US on Thursday.
The November crude oil contract was up 89 cents at US$70.77 per barrel and the October natural gas contract was down a penny at US2.27 per mmBTU.
The December gold contract was up US$9.40 at US$2,608.00 an ounce and the December copper contract was up four cents at US$4.33 a pound.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 19, 2024.
VANCOUVER – Supervised injection sites are saving the lives of drug users everyday, but the same support is not being offered to people who inhale illicit drugs, the head of the BC Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS says.
Dr. Julio Montaner said the construction of Vancouver’s first indoor supervised site for people who inhale drugs comes as the percentage of people who die from smoking drugs continues to climb.
The location in the Downtown Eastside at the Hope to Health Research and Innovation Centre was unveiled Wednesday after construction was complete, and Montaner said people could start using the specialized rooms in a matter of weeks after final approvals from the city and federal government.
“If we don’t create mechanisms for these individuals to be able to use safely and engage with the medical system, and generate points of entry into the medical system, we will never be able to solve the problem,” he said.
“Now, I’m not here to tell you that we will fix it tomorrow, but denying it or ignoring it, or throw it under the bus, or under the carpet is no way to fix it, so we need to take proactive action.”
Nearly two-thirds of overdose deaths in British Columbia in 2023 came after smoking illicit drugs, yet only 40 per cent of supervised consumption sites in the province offer a safe place to smoke, often outdoors, in a tent.
The centre has been running a supervised injection site for years which sees more than a thousand people monthly and last month resuscitated five people who were overdosing.
The new facilities offer indoor, individual, negative-pressure rooms that allow fresh air to circulate and can clear out smoke in 30 to 60 seconds while users are monitored by trained nurses.
Advocates calling for more supervised inhalation sites have previously said the rules for setting up sites are overly complicated at a time when the province is facing an overdose crisis.
More than 15,000 people have died of overdoses since the public health emergency was declared in B.C. in April 2016.
Kate Salters, a senior researcher at the centre, said they worked with mechanical and chemical engineers to make sure the site is up to code and abidies by the highest standard of occupational health and safety.
“This is just another tool in our tool box to make sure that we’re offering life-saving services to those who are using drugs,” she said.
Montaner acknowledged the process to get the site up and running took “an inordinate amount of time,” but said the centre worked hard to follow all regulations.
“We feel that doing this right, with appropriate scientific background, in a medically supervised environment, etc, etc, allows us to derive the data that ultimately will be sufficiently convincing for not just our leaders, but also the leaders across the country and across the world, to embrace the strategies that we are trying to develop.” he said.
Montaner said building the facility was possible thanks to a single $4-million donation from a longtime supporter.
Construction finished with less than a week before the launch of the next provincial election campaign and within a year of the next federal election.
Montaner said he is concerned about “some of the things that have been said publicly by some of the political leaders in the province and in the country.”
“We want to bring awareness to the people that this is a serious undertaking. This is a very massive investment, and we need to protect it for the benefit of people who are unfortunately drug dependent.” he said.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 18, 2024.
