“The Biden administration has issued an inordinate, enormous number of regulations, and regulations impose extra costs on businesses,” Richard Stern, director of the Grover M. Hermann Center for the Federal Budget at The Heritage Foundation, told the DCNF. “They the regulations prohibit certain businesses from functioning at all. Whenever you tie the hands of businesses that way … it means ultimately that they have to either cut their operations, which means cutting workers, or raising prices on consumers.”
The U.S. unemployment rate was 4.2% in November 2024, up from 3.7% the year prior, the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) reported. This marks a significant increase from a low of 3.4% in January 2023. (RELATED: Biden’s Decision To Block US Steel Deal Sparks Lawsuits, Backlash From Japan)
The average 30-year fixed mortgage interest rate in the U.S. was roughly 7% as of Monday, down from a previous peak of 7.79% in October 2023.
Much of Biden’s term has also been marred by stubborn inflation, which peaked at 9.1% in June 2022. The consumer price index, a broad measure of the price of everyday goods, increased 2.7% annually in November 2024, the BLS reported.
Notably, many Americans have had to adopt a second source of income in recent years to make ends meet. A MarketWatch survey published in August 2024 found that 54% of Americans said they had taken on a side hustle in the last 12 months to “supplement their primary source of income.”
“Reckless spending, money printing, new taxes and regulations is why we had a 21% price increase in consumer prices during Biden’s tenure. And that again puts downward pressure on hiring and downward pressure on wages. When you look at all these things together, it’s kind of a miracle that the economy has functioned as well as it has,” Stern added.
During Biden’s first two years in office, inflation outpaced wages for most workers. Real wages in the U.S. also declined between November 2020 and September 2024, according to data compiled by Statista.
Job seekers also have faced increased competition while applying for jobs. In 2023, job seekers had to send an average of 254 applications to get a job, compared to an average of 294 applications in 2024, according to Pathrise.
“Three major issues face job searchers today,” Peter Earle, a senior economist at the American Institute for Economic Research, told the DCNF. “First, the labor market has cooled. Total job openings have declined from their March 2022 peak, so there is increased competition for a falling number of available positions. The impact of the Biden administration’s regulatory expansion has led many small companies, which are the wellspring of job creation, to dial back hiring and expansion plans. Second, the hiring process has become more protracted – another regulatory cost. And, certain industries, such as manufacturing and technology, have had layoffs as they try to recover from the pendulum of lockdowns, reopenings, and economic volatility. There has recently been a huge surge in independent business owner optimism, so, some of these trends may reverse.”
Many consumers and businesses have been forced to contend with steep prices during Biden’s term. Consumer prices in the U.S. have risen roughly 20% since 2021.
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Some experts have attributed massive government spending under Biden’s term to fueling stubbornly-high inflation rates. Biden signed the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) into law in August 2022 as part of his signature climate agenda.
The Biden-Harris administration has so far awarded billions in grants for various clean energy projects through the IRA. Some estimates project that the IRA will cost over $1 trillion from 2023 to 2032.
