On MSNBC’s Morning Joe today, Steven Rattner charted President Biden’s first year in office, highlighting accomplishments, like job growth and judicial appointments, that have been undermined by the highest inflation in decades.
President Biden has just passed the first anniversary of his inauguration with some significant economic and broader accomplishments, as well as some continuing challenges.
On the good news front, the performance of the economy in 2021 significantly exceeded expectations on two important fronts: growth and unemployment. At the start of the year, a consensus of forecasters expected gross domestic product to expand by 4.5%; when final numbers are in, that figure is likely to be around 5.6%. That is the biggest increase in yearly GDP since the mid 1980s.
Similarly, unemployment ended the year at 3.9%, compared to projections of 5.1%. (That unemployment figure is near pre-pandemic levels.)
But on the inflation side, as is well known, the news is not good. Relative to projections of a 2.2% inflation rate, prices ultimately rose last year by 6.7%, the fastest in more than three decades. That is likely a prime cause of Biden’s low approval ratings.
Along with a lower unemployment rate came a stunningly and unexpectedly large increase in the number of jobs. The 6.4 million new jobs was 50% higher than the previous yearly record holder (which was 1978). Moreover, at present, we have 10.6 million open jobs, near the July 2021 all-time record.
Of course, part of the reason for all those “new” jobs was the recovery from the pandemic. It should also be noted that the economy is still 3.6 million jobs short of the February 2020 level. And 2.3 million people have left the labor force over that period.
On the non-economic front, the news is also mixed. As is well known, President Biden has had a tough time getting legislation passed. Last year, Congress enacted only 81 public laws (including minor and ministerial items). That is both the second lowest total for the first year of a Congress in decades (74 were passed in 2013) and a continuation of a long trend of Congress increasingly moving toward gridlock. Back in the 1980s, for example, Congress regularly passed as many as 230 laws in its first session.
On the other hand, the pace of judicial appointments was the highest in more than four decades. Congress confirmed 42 judges, compared to 22 at the same point in President Trump’s term and the most since the days of John F. Kennedy. And now President Biden will almost certainly be able to add a new Supreme Court justice to this accomplishment.
