Talk:Economic policy of the Joe Biden administration/Archive 1

This is an archive of past discussions about Economic policy of the Joe Biden administration. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

Hi, I created a heading on cryptocurrnecy with relevant information from her confirmation hearing and biden's recent executive orders. Is it worth having it's own section? And if it is, should it have its own heading, split up, or put into another section? Thanks. Phillip Samuel (talk) 02:28, 25 January 2021 (UTC)

I think you did just fine. This article will be built out over time and we can always decide what order to put it in later. Thanks for contributing!Farcaster (talk) 04:24, 25 January 2021 (UTC)

The Biden executive order only paused the Trump orders until actual decisions get made. We should wait until there are real decisions made in Washington. Rjensen (talk) 19:35, 9 April 2021 (UTC)

Rjensen, I don’t want to edit war with you, but your source does not support your above assertion. Please provide better sourcing or remove the assertion. soibangla (talk) 19:25, 12 April 2021 (UTC)

Ip (April 7 2021) = Ip, Greg. "How Bidenomics Seeks to Remake the Economic Consensus: Declaring end to neoliberalism, new thinkers play down constraints of deficits, inflation and incentives". The cite shows that "In present-day debates around neoliberalism, on the other hand, most accused of holding ‘neoliberal’ views would not accept being called ‘neoliberal.’ Either they would insist on being something else (whether it is ‘liberal,’ ‘classical liberal,’...." So the term "neoliberal" is only used by its opponents....and it is used today by Biden supporters. Rjensen (talk) 19:40, 12 April 2021 (UTC)

Bidenomics appears to be better served as a section of Economic policy of the Joe Biden administration rather than its current format as a stub I.am.a.qwerty (talk) 09:59, 13 April 2021 (UTC)

I see no need for the article or a merge. It’s standard for people to coin “-onomics” as shorthand for every president’s policy, but that shouldn’t mean we need to do anything more than note it in passing.[1] soibangla (talk) 18:05, 13 April 2021 (UTC)

Bidenomics should be a simple redirect to this page.Jaydavidmartin (talk) 01:25, 26 April 2021 (UTC)

Economic policy of the Ronald Reagan administration redirects to Reaganomics, so for consistency we should probably merge this article into Bidenomics, yes. The two terms largely overlap anyway. Chessrat ^{(talk, contributions)} 22:32, 1 May 2021 (UTC)

I'm agree with Chessrat on this. 👨x🐱 (talk) 23:20, 11 June 2021 (UTC)

I agree -- when a new term catches on we should use it. "Bidenomics" gets 974,000 hits here at google including USa and UK Rjensen (talk) 23:27, 11 June 2021 (UTC)

I don't think Bidenomics is at all comparable to the colloquialness of Reaganomics. The only time Bidenomics has come close to the same number of Google hits Reaganomics was on election night (Google Trends). Until it becomes more of WP:COMMONNAME, Bidenomics should redirect to Economic policy of the Joe Biden administration.  𝗙𝗼𝗿𝗺𝗮𝗹𝗗𝘂𝗱𝗲𝘁𝗮𝗹𝗸 11:44, 4 August 2021 (UTC)

The international communisty of scholars has strarted to use "Bidenomics"-- see https://scholar.google.com/scholar?as_ylo=2021&q=bidenomics&hl=en&as_sdt=0,27 for usage published in 2021 by scholars in India, Guatemala, Israel, Spain, Russia, Germany, UK, South Korea, Colombia, etc Rjensen (talk) 12:43, 4 August 2021 (UTC)

Support merge as initially proposed, that is, to Economic policy of the Joe Biden administration. Wikipedia isn't a dictionary, and so we don't need a separate page for each term, but rather for each topic. Economic policy of the Joe Biden administration is more comprehensible in English for non-specialist readers (who should be the target audience; the Google scholars search Rjensen links too has only 58 results, the vast majority of which are from languages other than English, which suggests that the term hasn't entered serious academic discussions in English. Klbrain (talk) 10:35, 15 September 2021 (UTC)

I check pages listed in Category:Pages with incorrect ref formatting to try to fix reference errors. One of the things I do is look for content for orphaned references in wikilinked articles. I have found content for some of Economic policy of the Joe Biden administration's orphans, the problem is that I found more than one version. I can't determine which (if any) is correct for this article, so I am asking for a sentient editor to look it over and copy the correct ref content into this article.

Reference named "CBO_Fcst1":

• From Economic policy of the Donald Trump administration: "CBO's Current Projections of Output, Employment, and Interest Rates and a Preliminary Look at Federal Deficits for 2020 and 2021". April 24, 2020 – via cbo.gov.
• From Economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States: "CBO's Current Projections of Output, Employment, and Interest Rates and a Preliminary Look at Federal Deficits for 2020 and 2021". April 24, 2020. Archived from the original on May 30, 2020. Retrieved May 30, 2020 – via cbo.gov.

Reference named "Nonfarm Payrolls":

• From Economic policy of the Donald Trump administration: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (January 1, 1939). "All Employees: Total Nonfarm Payrolls". FRED, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. Retrieved June 4, 2019.
• From Economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (January 1, 1939). "All Employees: Total Nonfarm Payrolls". FRED, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. Archived from the original on May 12, 2019. Retrieved June 4, 2019.

I apologize if any of the above are effectively identical; I am just a simple computer program, so I can't determine whether minor differences are significant or not. AnomieBOT⚡ 19:09, 27 December 2021 (UTC)

This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 26 January 2021 and 29 April 2021. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): ButterKnifeMan.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 20:26, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

does the article really need this much detail about it? I don't think we need a play-by-play of developments. soibangla (talk) 09:57, 7 July 2022 (UTC)

seriously, CommonKnowledgeCreator, waaay too much. soibangla (talk) 12:42, 13 July 2022 (UTC)

"Investment in clean energy" is mentioned in the intro, but does not appear in the article body. Biden has curtailed US oil and natural gas production, which causes rising energy costs, which adds fuel to inflation. Biden's policy on energy needs to be added here. JustinTime55 (talk) 15:38, 21 October 2022 (UTC)

To the extent that anyone can nail down "Bidenomics" to a set of policies or even a general philosophy towards policymaking, it seems to entail "a mixture of protectionism, subsidies and social measures at a time of full employment"[2]. And while the Biden administration likes to project the façade of relying on advice from mainstream economists (eg appointing Janet Yellen to head the Treasury), the people who are actually informing his policy agenda are total amateurs and "geopoliticians" like Jake Sullivan. This alone should ring warning bells as to the actual effects these policies have been having on the economy.

In the last paragraph of the lead, we find a litany of positive economic developments over the last 2 years -job growth, low unemployment rate, stock market gains, easing inflation -with the implication that all this growth and stability had something to do with Biden administration policies. Of course economic analysis involves a lot more than trumpeting facts (or "Trump"-ing facts?) and making unsubstantiated claims about causality: facts are important, but facts need to be contextualized and logically interpreted for them to have any meaning. On closer inspection, one finds that almost none of these developments had anything to do with Biden policies, not even indirectly.

Take job growth as an example. Over a million jobs have been added to the economy since January, but these gains have occurred disproportionately in the hospitality and leisure sector[3][4], followed by business services[5]. What actually happened was, people have been returning to their offices after a long covid recession and remote working, which has fueled demand for hospitality/leisure services (more flights, more business meetings, more catering etc). This was a trend that started before Biden took office and so had nothing to do with his silly "industrial policy". Manufacturing employment has struggled to reach and maintain its pre-covid levels, and the sector actually lost ~40,000 jobs in June[6]. (Note the ADP count was revised down significantly in the official jobs report -only 209,000 jobs were added last month, below the consensus estimate.)

Biden has also made several economic claims over the last 2 years that have been rated totally false or mostly false by fact checkers. With respect to inflation, when Biden was selling his $1.9 trillion stimulus he claimed that it had broad support among economists across the ideological spectrum, which Politifact rated mostly false[7]. The general consensus among economists is that while Biden's stimulus wasn't a primary cause of peak inflation, he certainly spent too much money too fast and put more upward pressure on prices. What actually curbed inflation was the Federal Reserve's monetary policy (target rate hikes), which is exactly what you'd predict from mainstream macroeconomic theory. Once again the Biden administration meddled in the economy, made it worse and then claimed credit for central bank policies.

Finally (and I can go on but this is very long already), the section on trade policy cites Biden's trade rep. Katherine Tai -another total amateur with no background in trade economics. Readers should be made aware that there's broad economic consensus against Biden's "industrial policy" and "Buy American" programs[8][9] and broad support for trade liberalization[10][11]. This might be why none of Biden's trade advisors have expertise in international trade.

In too many places in this article, we find the type of political cheerleading and economic cluelessness you'd expect from partisan journalists, but not the sort of thing you'd want in an encyclopedia. This article should strive for more context, neutrality and a greater reliance on reliable sources. Jonathan f1 (talk) 05:27, 17 July 2023 (UTC)

you covered quite a bit there. I encourage you to edit the article, and I'd prefer it be done incrementally so we can digest it. soibangla (talk) 13:23, 17 July 2023 (UTC)

oh wait, I see you're blocked. nevermind then. soibangla (talk) 13:31, 17 July 2023 (UTC)

Actually I was "blocked" for being a little too bold and was told to take some time to practice the consensus process on talk pages. I was also instructed by admins to report anyone who tries using the block to discredit by talk contributions. So, I strongly advise you don't try it again.

You're right -this is a bit much for one dose so how about I open a new one and focus on a particular section of the article that needs massive cleanup? Because, truth shall prevail. Jonathan f1 (talk) 04:08, 18 July 2023 (UTC)

I did not discredit your Talk contributions and I'd appreciate it if you would acknowledge that. soibangla (talk) 04:17, 18 July 2023 (UTC)

Okay, you didn't discredit my talk contributions, you merely informed me that I can't currently edit the article. I am (and was) well aware of that. I'll open a new talk after I get some sources together. Jonathan f1 (talk) 04:21, 18 July 2023 (UTC)

Of course you were aware of your block, I was just letting you know I became aware of it after encouraging you to edit the article. soibangla (talk) 04:26, 18 July 2023 (UTC)

IMO, the first graf of this section contains sweeping assertions that need to be supported by multiple sources. It appears to suggest Biden’s policy is a heterodox outlier, suggesting fringe, and that really needs strong support. Friedman’s asserted dominance of economic thought since 1980 is dubious. Despite efforts to demonize it because some oppose taxes, Keynesianism of some flavor appears to remain the dominant school of thought. soibangla (talk) 18:25, 12 April 2021 (UTC)

It is broadly misleading to say "Keynesianism of some flavor is the dominant school of [economic] thought." As I mentioned below in recent talk sections, the dominant school of macroeconomic thought is the new neoclassical synthesis, which does blend elements of Keynesianism with neoclassical economics. Friedman does not have continued dominance over every aspect of macroeconomics, but neither does Keynes -both believed things that are now disputed by most mainstream economists.

It is not a "sweeping assertion" to say Biden's policies are mostly fringe -anyone who knows anything about contemporary economics is aware this administration frequently aligns itself with heterodox schools of thought and relies more on think tank professionals and geopoliticians than mainstream academic economists, a sharp break from previous administrations pre-Trump. The administration's approach to trade and globalization is totally fringe, as is their faith on fiscal policies to control inflation (which is old school Keynesianism and does not work -one thing Friedman was right about is that inflation rates are influenced mostly by money supply). I cite many surveys of economists below showing Biden policies on trade, globalization and industrial policy are totally fringe. His positions on unionization and $15 minimum wage also have weak mainstream support. Jonathan f1 (talk) 22:09, 22 July 2023 (UTC)

Who wrote this crap, The White House? How about the Railroad Union Employees who were stabbed in the back by this pro-union President? 2600:8801:E800:4EEF:8B2:B526:8B71:8918 (talk) 22:41, 23 August 2023 (UTC)

Wow, I mean if the Biden admin wants a new campaign ad, they should just put a QR code to this press release on billboards across the country lol. The way gas prices (one of the top news stories of the economy) was mentioned... once... on a graphic.... the overwhelming use of graphics created by the WHITE HOUSE (not to mention quotes and talking points)... the blatant lies ("the unemployment rate averaged 3.6%, the lowest since 1969" this was in 2019...) overuse of priming language (strong, robust, threatened), attributing all the positive economic growth to Biden (not natural pandemic recovery that would happen regardless... and was toward the end of 2020) but inflation, oh that's part of a "global inflation surge" I mean wtf is up with the section entitled "Welfare state"

Those who wrote this should be embarrassed (unless they work for the White House, in which congrats this stayed up this long) and any Wikipedians with dignity and a respect for the goals of Wikipedia should be on high priority to start from scratch and rewrite this whole entry... 2601:648:8800:3B70:55A2:7261:2AED:53E8 (talk) 00:43, 17 August 2023 (UTC)

Well, compared to his incompetent predecessor, Joe Biden looks like a candidate for sainthood. Dimadick (talk) 16:52, 17 August 2023 (UTC)

Unemployment rate averaged 3.6% in 2022 and 3.7% in 2019. Easy to verify, just Google "FRED Unrate" and download the data into Excel, or click "Edit Graph" and "Annual" as timeframe, average as the measure. Pick your measure, even adjusted for inflation, economy was better in 2022 than 2019. And 2023 even better than 2022.Farcaster (talk) 23:43, 17 August 2023 (UTC)

Unemployment is rarely every measured as annualized average but I see that you are correct on that hand. I disagree with "even adjusted for inflation, economy was better in 2022 than 2019" though but I'm glad you are optimistic 2601:648:8800:3B70:2A:9BFF:65E1:AA20 (talk) 21:25, 18 August 2023 (UTC)

Real (inflation-adjusted) wages for production & non-supervisory workers were higher in 2021-2023 than in 2019 also. They average higher under Biden than any other president. Real net worth overall and for bottom 50% was also higher in 2021-2023 than 2019. Incredible media negativity (focus on inflation) without focusing on income has impacted perception.Farcaster (talk) 02:51, 19 August 2023 (UTC)

Real GDP had regained the pre-pandemic peak as of Q1 '21, Biden's first quarter in office, so the recovery from a GDP perspective was complete at the time he started. Jobs did not regain their pre-pandemic peak until June 2022.Farcaster (talk) 02:20, 20 August 2023 (UTC)

Actually, real wages are significantly below their pre-pandemic trend and are simply not where you'd expect them to be,[12] indicating there's a problem with costs. And I honestly don't know why anyone wouldn't think there'd be a problem with costs with all the tariffs, subsidy wars and Biden's manufacturing-centric obsession with local production.

But don't let a little regression chart get in the way of a good puff piece. This article is filled with pseudo-economic fantasy about Biden's ability to create jobs and growth by merely breathing air in the Oval Office. Cause, Bidenomics. Jonathan f1 (talk) 03:27, 11 September 2023 (UTC)

well, if we had a reliable source for Furman's chart (can't use twitter) we could add real wage growth is below trend. but as it stands the level of real wages is higher than in 2019, and trending up.[13] also, do we say "Biden did these things" or do we say "these things happened under Biden"? soibangla (talk) 13:27, 11 September 2023 (UTC)

Jason Furman is a Harvard economist and former CEA chair under Obama. He most certainly is a reliable source for economic data even though Twitter, by itself, is generally not. The data he used came from the Bureau of Labor Statistics -what's so unreliable about this?

And why keep mentioning that "as it stands the level of real wages is higher than 2019" and "real wages are higher under Biden than any other president(!!)"? This was the case for precisely every presidential administration that's existed since this data's been collected. Every single one of Biden's predecessors said the same thing until they couldn't say it anymore.

What is more significant than real wages being higher than 2019 (which is exactly what you'd expect without a major economic crisis) is that they are 3 -5% below the pre-2020 trend. The economy's recovered from covid yet the standard of living for average Americans is down. Jonathan f1 (talk) 00:53, 12 September 2023 (UTC)

yes, I know who Furman is, and he's a subject matter expert, so maybe twitter could be used as a source, so maybe you can do that.

This was the case for precisely every presidential administration that's existed since this data's been collected no, see 1973 thru 1995[14] soibangla (talk) 01:06, 12 September 2023 (UTC)

That's a fair point about the 1970s through the 1990s, but doesn't really take anything away from my main argument (which is why I didn't bother checking the data). Real wages trend up over time (central banks target a 2-3% inflation rate per year and you'd expect wages to rise in proportion). In the 70s there was an ugly episode of stagflation and wages were not increasing, and in the 80s and early 90s there was a Savings & Loan crisis that led to a reduction in national saving and capital accumulation which also impacted wages. So my point still stands that, short of an economic crisis or financial disaster, it is no big deal to say that AHE is higher under administration y than administration x if y follows x -every president since Clinton was able to boast just that. It is far more significant that the economy has fully recovered from covid yet real wages are 3 -5% below the pre-pandemic trend. You can tweak the data to get different results but in every case you're still below the 2020 trendline, which implies that the standard of living for average Americans is lower under Biden and that there is a problem with costs in the economy.

It would be unfair to blame all these cost issues on Biden policies, but certainly his subsidies, tariffs and manufacturing-centric industrial policies are having an impact. Economists have made this point time and again but have failed to penetrate the ever popular notion that local production matters. It simply doesn't matter where something is built (despite broad political appeal of these policies), and the tradeoff of higher costs for local production never makes any sense.

And isn't it interesting that the sudden rise in real wages on your graph coincided with a surge in immigration and the signing of NAFTA, calling into question the anti-globalization messaging of Biden and Trump. People who try to deny the overwhelmingly positive effects of trade and immigration have to engage in gross distortions and manipulations of data to make this work, and even then their arguments quickly collapse under closer scrutiny. One does wonder what sort of "economists" are advising this administration. Jonathan f1 (talk) 19:33, 12 September 2023 (UTC)