Resurgent U.S. Economy Doesn't End Biden's Woes

In August 1984, President Ronald Reagan highlighted a resurgent economy and proclaimed during a reelection campaign he later won in a landslide that “America is on the move again,” Stephen Collinson and Shelby Rose reported for CNN.

Photo Insert: US President Joe Biden takes the lead at the Competition Council meeting

On Thursday, President Joe Biden celebrated the best yearly GDP economic growth number — 5.7% — since 1984, Reagan was in the White House, which shows a strong rebound from the COVID-19 slump.

“The GDP numbers for my first year show that we are finally building an American economy for the 21st century,” Biden said Thursday, noting that the US had just outpaced China’s economy for the first time in 20 years.

But it doesn’t feel like America is on the move again -- even though Biden said it was in his first joint address to Congress last year. One problem is that prices rose alongside growth. Inflation is running at the highest levels since 1981. Global supply-chain crunches mean goods are hard to come by.

If you are living on the edge, even small increases in a weekly grocery bill are painful -- a fact the White House was slow to appreciate. And gasoline prices shot up before Christmas and are projected to do so again.

America’s bitter polarization may also be to blame. Millions of Republican voters believe Trump’s lies that he’s the rightful president. And if viewers of conservative TV are told often enough that the country is on the verge of a communist economic takeover, some will believe it.

If the Omicron wave does disappear as quickly as it arrived and signals the beginning of the end of the pandemic, the national mood could turn, especially if inflation dips. But until then, Biden will be in a hole and unable to release a Stars and Stripes-draped political ad declaring, as Reagan did, “It’s morning again, in America.”

WEEKLY FEATURE : MVP Group Keeps Lights On During Pandemic