Biden, Joseph R Jr

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    Biden Portrays Next Phase of Economic Agenda as Middle-Class Lifeline

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    The president used his State of the Union speech to pitch tax increases for the rich, along with plans to cut costs and protect consumers.President Biden used his State of the Union speech on Thursday to remind Americans of his efforts to steer the nation’s economy out of a pandemic recession, and to lay the groundwork for a second term focused on making the economy more equitable by raising taxes on companies and the wealthy while taking steps to reduce costs for the middle class.Mr. Biden offered a blitz of policies squarely targeting the middle class, including efforts to make housing more affordable for first-time home buyers. The president used his speech to try and differentiate his economic proposals with those supported by Republicans, including former President Donald J. Trump. Those proposals have largely centered on cutting taxes, rolling back the Biden administration’s investments in clean energy and gutting the Internal Revenue Service.Many of Mr. Biden’s policy proposals would require acts of Congress and hinge on Democrats winning control of the House and the Senate. However, the president also unveiled plans to direct federal agencies to use their powers to reduce costs for big-ticket items like housing at a time when the lingering effects of inflation continue to weigh on economic sentiment.From taxes and housing to inflation and consumer protection, Mr. Biden had his eye on pocketbook issues.Raising Taxes on the RichMany of the tax cuts that Mr. Trump signed into law in 2017 are set to expire next year, making tax policy among the most critical issues on the ballot this year.On Thursday night, Mr. Biden built upon many of the tax proposals that he has been promoting for the last three years, calling for big corporations and the wealthiest Americans to pay more. He proposed raising a new corporate minimum tax to 21 percent from 15 percent and proposed a new 25 percent minimum tax rate for billionaires, which he said would raise $500 billion over a decade.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    Brighter Economic Mood Isn’t Translating Into Support for Biden

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    Voters feel slightly better about the economy as inflation recedes, but partisan divides remain deep, a Times/Siena poll found.Eight months before the election, Americans feel slightly better about the state of the economy as inflation recedes and the labor market remains stable, but President Biden doesn’t appear to be benefiting.Among registered voters nationwide, 26 percent believe the economy is good or excellent, according to polling in late February by The New York Times and Siena College. That share is up six percentage points since July. The movement occurred disproportionately among older Democrats, a constituency already likely to vote for Mr. Biden.And the share of voters saying they approve of the job Mr. Biden is doing in office has actually fallen, to 36 percent in the latest poll, from 39 percent in July.Inflation has pervaded economic sentiment since mid-2022, confronting voters daily with the price of everything from eggs to car insurance. Even as inflation has been falling since mid-2023 — and wage growth has lately outpaced the rate of price increases, at least on average — many Americans don’t yet see the problem as solved. Nearly two-thirds of registered voters in the Times/Siena poll rated the price of food and consumer goods as poor.Mr. Biden’s team has pointed to an array of indications that the economy has rebounded remarkably well since he assumed office, including an unemployment rate that has been under 4 percent for two years and a stock market that has set record after record.But in a persistent trend that has confounded pollsters and economists, those fundamentals largely haven’t been reflected in surveys. Forty percent of those surveyed said the economy was worse than it was a year earlier, compared with 23 percent who thought it was better — even though a narrow majority rated their personal financial situation as good or excellent.

    Source: New York Times/Siena College poll of 980 registered voters conducted Feb. 25 to 28, 2024By Christine Zhang

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    How would you rate each of the following aspects of the economy today?
    Source: New York Times/Siena College poll of 980 registered voters conducted Feb. 25 to 28, 2024By Christine ZhangWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    Biden Seeks Housing Solutions Amid High Mortgage Rates

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    The president and his team are seeking ways to help Americans afford to rent and buy homes, as high borrowing costs dampen views of the economy.President Biden and his economic team, concerned that elevated mortgage rates and housing costs are hurting Americans and hindering his re-election bid, are searching for new ways to make housing more available and affordable.Mr. Biden’s forthcoming budget request will call on Congress to pass a raft of initiatives to build more affordable housing and help certain Americans afford to purchase a home. The president is also expected to address housing affordability for both homeowners and renters in his State of the Union address next week, according to people familiar with the speech planning.On Thursday, administration officials announced a handful of relatively modest executive actions, including steps to increase the supply of manufactured homes. White House officials said this week that they would announce “additional actions we are taking to lower housing costs.”The increased focus on housing affordability comes as congressional Republicans assail Mr. Biden over high mortgage rates and housing costs, and as allies of the president warn that those costs are hurting working-class voters he needs to win in November.There is little Mr. Biden can do immediately and directly to affect mortgage rates. Those are heavily influenced by the Federal Reserve’s interest rate policies, and the White House is careful not to appear to be pressuring the central bank to cut rates. Fed officials have signaled that they expect to begin cutting rates this year.New research from economists at Harvard University and the International Monetary Fund — including Lawrence H. Summers, the former Treasury secretary — suggests high mortgage rates and other borrowing costs are contributing to Americans’ relatively gloomy mood about the economy, despite low unemployment and healthy growth. By weighing on consumer confidence, those costs could be depressing Mr. Biden’s re-election hopes.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    Yellen Urges Israel to Restore Economic Ties to West Bank

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    Treasury Secretary Janet L. Yellen said on Tuesday that she had personally urged Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel to increase commercial engagement with the West Bank, contending that doing so was important for the economic welfare of both Israelis and Palestinians.Ms. Yellen’s plea was outlined in a letter that she sent to Mr. Netanyahu on Sunday. It represented her most explicit public expression of concern about the economic consequences of the war between Israel and Hamas. In the letter, Ms. Yellen said, she warned about the consequences of the erosion of basic services in the West Bank and called for Israel to reinstate work permits for Palestinians and reduce barriers to commerce within the West Bank.“These actions are vital for the economic well-being of Palestinians and Israelis alike,” Ms. Yellen said at a news conference in Brazil ahead of a gathering of finance ministers from the Group of 20 nations.The letter came as the cabinet of the Palestinian Authority, which administers part of the Israeli-occupied West Bank, submitted its resignation on Monday in hopes that it could overhaul itself in a way that would enable it to potentially take over the administration of Gaza after the war there ends. Negotiations between Israel and Hamas are also resuming in Qatar this week as mediators from that nation, along with the United State and Egypt, work on a deal to release some hostages being held by Hamas in Gaza in exchange for Israel’s agreeing to a temporary cease-fire.Senior Biden administration officials have been trying to mediate a resolution to the conflict in Gaza, which health authorities there say has killed approximately 29,000 Palestinians. Ms. Yellen has largely been focused on tracking the economic implications of the war and managing the sanctions that the Treasury Department has imposed on Hamas and those who are involved in its network of finances.While the Biden administration has been concerned about the humanitarian crisis unfolding in Gaza, it is increasingly worried that economic unrest in the West Bank could fuel violence and further deteriorate living standards there. The war has already taken a toll on Israel’s economy, which contracted by nearly 20 percent in the fourth quarter of last year.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    An Emboldened F.T.C. Bolsters Biden’s Efforts to Address Inflation

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    With few unilateral options and little hope of legislation from Congress, the president’s early investment in competition policy could pay a political dividend.An independent federal agency has become one of the most reliable executors of President Biden’s attempts to fight inflation, at a time when the White House has few weapons of its own to quickly bring down stubbornly high prices of consumer staples like groceries.The Federal Trade Commission filed a lawsuit on Monday, joined by several state attorneys general, to challenge a merger between the supermarket giants Kroger and Albertsons. The agency’s rationale in many ways echoed Mr. Biden’s renewed attempts to blame corporate greed for rising prices and shrinking portions in grocery aisles.“If allowed, this merger would substantially lessen competition, likely resulting in Americans paying millions of dollars more for food and other essential household goods,” agency officials wrote in a legal complaint. Because grocery prices have risen significantly in recent years, they added, “the stakes for Americans are exceptionally high.”That is true for consumers, and it is true for the president. More Americans disapprove of his handling of the economy than approve of it. Consumer confidence, while improved in recent months, remains relatively weak for an economy with low unemployment and solid growth like the one Mr. Biden is presiding over.An internal analysis by White House economists suggests that no single factor is weighing more on consumer sentiment than grocery prices. Those costs soared in 2022 and have not fallen, though their rate of increase has slowed.White House officials concede that there is little more Mr. Biden can do unilaterally to reduce grocery prices and even less chance of legislative help from Congress. That is why Mr. Biden has resorted to the bully pulpit, calling on stores to reduce prices and chastising snack makers for engaging in “shrinkflation” — reducing portions while raising or maintaining prices.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    Biden Targets a New Economic Villain: Shrinkflation

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    Liberals prodded the president for years to blame big corporations for price increases. He is finally doing so, in the grocery aisle.On Super Bowl Sunday, the White House released a short video in which a smiling President Biden, sitting next to a table stocked with chips, cookies and sports drinks, slammed companies for reducing the package size and portions of popular foods without an accompanying reduction in price.“I’ve had enough of what they call shrinkflation,” Mr. Biden declared.The video lit up social media and delighted a consumer advocate named Edgar Dworsky, who has studied “shrinkflation” trends for more than a decade. He has twice briefed Mr. Biden’s economic aides, first in early 2023 and again a few days before the video aired. The first briefing seemed to lead nowhere. The second clearly informed Mr. Biden’s new favorite economic argument — that companies have used a rapid run-up in prices to pad their pockets by keeping those prices high while giving consumers less.The products arrayed in the president’s video, like Oreos and Wheat Thins, were all examples of the shrinkflation that Mr. Dworsky had documented on his Consumer World website.While inflation is moderating, shoppers remain furious over the high price of groceries. Mr. Biden, who has seen his approval ratings suffer amid rising prices, has found a blame-shifting message he loves in the midst of his re-election campaign: skewering companies for shrinking the size of candy bars, ice cream cartons and other food items, while raising prices or holding them steady, even as the companies’ profit margins remain high.The president has begun accusing companies of “ripping off” Americans with those tactics and is considering new executive actions to crack down on the practice, administration officials and other allies say, though they will not specify the steps he might take. He is also likely to criticize shrinkflation during his State of the Union address next week.Mr. Biden could also embrace new legislation seeking to empower the Federal Trade Commission to more aggressively investigate and punish corporate price gouging, including in grocery stories.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    2 Years Into Russia-Ukraine War, U.S. Campaign to Isolate Putin Shows Limits

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    Many nations insist on not taking sides in the war in Ukraine, while China, India and Brazil are filling Russia’s coffers.The Biden administration and European allies call President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia a tyrant and a war criminal. But he enjoys a standing invitation to the halls of power in Brazil.The president of Brazil says that Ukraine and Russia are both to blame for the war that began with the Russian military’s invasion. And his nation’s purchases of Russian energy and fertilizer have soared, pumping billions of dollars into the Russian economy.The views of the president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, encapsulate the global bind in which the United States and Ukraine find themselves as the war enters its third year.When Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24, 2022, the Biden administration activated a diplomatic offensive that was as important as its scramble to ship weapons to the Ukrainian military. Wielding economic sanctions and calling for a collective defense of international order, the United States sought to punish Russia with economic pain and political exile. The goal was to see companies and countries cut ties with Moscow.But two years later, Mr. Putin is not nearly as isolated as U.S. officials had hoped. Russia’s inherent strength, rooted in its vast supplies of oil and natural gas, has powered a financial and political resilience that threatens to outlast Western opposition. In parts of Asia, Africa and South America, his influence is as strong as ever or even growing. And his grip on power at home appears as strong as ever.The war has undoubtedly taken a toll on Russia: It has wrecked the country’s standing with much of Europe. The International Criminal Court has issued a warrant for Mr. Putin’s arrest. The United Nations has repeatedly condemned the invasion.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    For Michigan’s Economy, Electric Vehicles Are Promising and Scary

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    Last fall, Tiffanie Simmons, a second-generation autoworker, endured a six-week strike at the Ford Motor factory just west of Detroit where she builds Bronco S.U.V.s. That yielded a pay raise of 25 percent over the next four years, easing the pain of reductions that she and other union workers swallowed more than a decade ago.But as Ms. Simmons, 38, contemplates prospects for the American auto industry in the state that invented it, she worries about a new force: the shift toward electric vehicles. She is dismayed that the transition has been championed by President Biden, whose pro-labor credentials are at the heart of his bid for re-election, and who recently gained the endorsement of her union, the United Automobile Workers.The Biden administration has embraced electric vehicles as a means of generating high-paying jobs while cutting emissions. It has dispensed tax credits to encourage consumers to buy electric cars, while limiting the benefits to models that use American-made parts.But autoworkers fixate on the assumption that electric cars — simpler machines than their gas-powered forebears — will require fewer hands to build. They accuse Mr. Biden of jeopardizing their livelihoods.“I was disappointed,” Ms. Simmons said of the president. “We trust you to make sure that Americans are employed.”Tiffanie Simmons works in Wayne, Mich., at a Ford Motor factory that builds Broncos.Nick Hagen for The New York TimesMs. Simmons’s union has endorsed President Biden, but “I was disappointed” in him, she said.Nick Hagen for The New York TimesWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More