WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden has notched an envious record on jobs, with 10.3 million gained during his tenure. But voters in Tuesday’s midterm elections are far more focused on inflation hovering near 40-year highs.
That’s left the president trying to convince the public that the job gains mean better days are ahead, even as fears of a recession build.
Presidents have long trusted that voters would reward them for strong economic growth, but inflation has thrown a monkey wrench into the probability of Democrats retaining control of the House and Senate.
Economic anxieties have compounded as the Federal Reserve has repeatedly hiked its benchmark interest rates to lower inflation and possibly raise unemployment. Mortgage costs have shot upward, while the S&P 500 stock index has dropped more than 20 percent so far this year.
Biden is asking voters to look beyond the current financial pain, saying that what matters are the job gains that he believes his policies are fostering. The government reported Friday that employers added 261,000 jobs in October as the unemployment rate bumped up to 3.7 percent.
Roughly 740,000 manufacturing jobs have been added since the start of Biden’s presidency, a figure that the president says will keep rising because of his funding for infrastructure projects, the production of computer chips and the switch to clean energy sources.
“America is reasserting itself — it’s as simple as that,” Biden said in a Friday speech. “We also know folks are still struggling with inflation. It’s our No. 1 priority.”
Yet the president is also warning that a Republican majority in Congress could make inflation worse by seeking to undo his programs and treating payments on the federal debt as a bargaining chip instead of an obligation to honor.
His challenge is that the party in power generally faces skeptical voters in U.S. midterms, and inflation looms over the public mindset more than job growth.
“If you have a job, it’s small comfort to know that the job market is strong if at the same time you feel like every paycheck is worth less and less anyway,” pollster Kristen Soltis Anderson said.
