President Joe Biden is officially running for re-election, and the 3-minute video he released Tuesday to announce the new 2024 campaign focused on economic concerns alongside other issues like abortion and defending democracy.
It’s an appropriate time, then, to assess how Biden has performed on the economic promises he made in 2020. A look back reveals a productive 27 months in office — but also a lengthy to-do list that remains.
A Yahoo Finance analysis of data tracked by Politifact.com shows that 34 of 99 key pledges made by Biden in 2020 focused around core economic concerns like jobs, economic growth, taxes, and retirement. Over half of those pledges are still works in progress while 15 of them have been fulfilled at least in some form.
Biden himself acknowledged as much in Tuesday’s video asking Americans to help him “finish the job, I know we can.”
Here’s some of the highlights of those financial promises — and what’s still on the docket.
Taxes and Social Security
Biden put Social Security and taxes at the center of his message Tuesday, as he did in his State of the Union address.
He charges that conservative Republicans are intent on “cutting Social Security that you’ve paid for your entire life while cutting taxes for the very wealthy” and promising to protect “bedrock freedoms.”
It is a charge that Biden has been making for months now – and most Republicans vehemently deny. But the focus on the social safety net program also has echoes of 2020, when Biden promised to expand Social Security and pledged to point the program towards long run solvency.
Both of those promises remain unfulfilled. In fact, Social Security is moving steadily towards insolvency and the prospect of reduced benefits in about 10 years time. President Biden’s recent budget proposal lacked a Social Security plan as it instead focused on shoring up the Medicare trust fund.
“Why doesn’t the president care?” said Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-LA), who has been leading bipartisan talks on the issue. He claimed Biden wouldn’t even sit for a meeting on the issue.
