“Americans voted for rest, not revolution. » This was the comment of Wall Street Journal, in April 2021, in the wake of Joe Biden’s arrival in power, and just before his first major speech to the United States Congress. America thought it had elected a calming old gentleman, but beneath this false transitional pope was hiding a revolutionary who wanted to rebuild America (Build Back Better).
“Elected as the anti-Trump, Joe Biden aspires to be the second incarnation of FDR [Franklin Delano Roosevelt (président de 1933 à 1945), le père du New Deal qui transforma son pays après la crise de 1929] », noted the economic daily. We could also make the comparison with Lyndon Johnson (1963-1968), John Kennedy’s underestimated successor because of his commitment to Vietnam, but who passed the greatest social and anti-segregation laws in the United States.
Three years later, when Joe Biden delivered his State of the Union speech on Thursday, March 7, this platform proved premonitory. He has in no way reconciled America torn between Trumpists and Democrats. On the other hand, he profoundly changed her. Or rather, America has changed profoundly under his mandate, and the interest is to distinguish what depends on the impulse of the president or the markets.
Six months before the presidential election, the economic picture is bright. Inflation fell to 1.8%, after reaching a peak of 9.1% in June 2022; unemployment is at or near its lowest level with a rate of 3.7% of the active population; real wages are increasing, particularly at the bottom of the scale; the country produces more oil than ever, finances a huge investment plan in energy and microprocessors, and is throwing itself headlong into artificial intelligence, which is making Wall Street soar.
No one talks about secular stagnation anymore like in the 2010s, while the word “Rust Belt,” naming the deindustrialized states that elected Donald Trump in 2016, has disappeared from the newspapers.
Wage increase
First observation, America is becoming more industrial again. Donald Trump dreamed of it, Joe Biden did it. The president succeeded in implementing an unprecedented policy in this area, with a massive program of subsidies for semiconductors and renewable energies. The spending – most often made up of tax credits – has not yet been paid, but the pump is primed with massive investments in renewables and semiconductor factories worth from 10 billion to 40 billion dollars (up to at 37 billion euros), carried out by TSMC, Samsung, Intel or Micron. Asian and European investors are flocking to the US domestic market, attracted by subsidies and cheap energy.
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