Biden Says He Is ‘Turning Things Around’ on the Economy in Chicago Speech

“I’m not here to declare victory in the economy,” he said. “I’m here to say we have a plan that is turning things around incredibly quickly.” He added that “we have more work to do.”

Republicans have criticized Mr. Biden for high inflation, high interest rates that make borrowing more expensive, and the cost of everyday necessities like health care, child care, groceries, gas and more.

“While families suffer, the Biden administration is in a fantasy world, insisting their ‘policy has indeed worked,’” Tommy Pigott, a spokesman for the National Republican Committee, said in a statement on Tuesday. “Americans don’t want Biden to ‘finish the job.’”

Administration officials acknowledge there is more work to do in bringing down inflation, but they note it has fallen for 11 straight months. The Council of Economic Advisers estimates that inflation is now lower in the United States than in any other wealthy Group of 7 nation.

Mr. Biden has signed trillions of dollars in economic legislation since taking office. That includes a $1.9 trillion package to hasten recovery from the pandemic recession, which economists say contributed at least to some degree to rising inflation, and bipartisan bills to invest in infrastructure and advanced manufacturing. On party lines, Democrats also passed an energy, climate and tax bill that has already led to new factory announcements for electric vehicles, batteries and more.

Administration officials this week released new analyses to underscore how those laws are beginning to boost the economy. The Treasury Department calculated that the historical pace of investment in manufacturing construction — led by semiconductor factories targeted by one of the bipartisan bills — has essentially doubled this year after adjusting for inflation. The Energy Department said low-emission energy jobs, like in offshore wind, rose by 4 percent last year.

In other areas, though, administration officials continue to make claims about Mr. Biden’s record that are not supported by evidence. A White House statement this week said that Mr. Biden “presided over $1.7 trillion in deficit reduction — a larger reduction than under any other president in American history.” That claim ignores the fact that much of that deficit reduction was the result of pandemic spending aid programs expiring and not being renewed.