President Biden’s top economic adviser said Monday that the administration is working to engineer a revival in economically disadvantaged communities across the country, citing new federal spending patterns and signs of economic progress in places like eastern Pennsylvania and Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
Lael Brainard, who chairs Biden’s National Economic Council, used a speech to the Brookings Institution in Washington to outline the administration’s efforts to bring jobs, investment and innovation to regions hampered by the loss of jobs and industries.
These “place-based” policies are often directed at former industrial strongholds damaged by automation and foreign competition. It is a cornerstone of Mr. Biden’s economic agenda across several major pieces of legislation he has signed and a major part of his reelection campaign. Whether voters view them as successful could affect Biden’s chances in November, especially in industrial swing states like Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.
Mr. Biden entered office determined to invest in all of America, leaving no community behind. “So far, we think it’s working,” Ms. Brainard said. “New jobs and new small businesses create hope. Communities that were left behind are coming back.”
The spatial efforts are included in several bills signed by Biden, including those targeting infrastructure, climate change, clean energy production, semiconductors and other advanced industries, which Ms. Brainard highlighted on Monday afternoon. The Departments of Commerce and Transportation launched pilot programs to support neighborhoods that were historically deprived of opportunity.
Ms. Brainard provided case studies of two areas in particular: Allentown, Pa., and Milwaukee, both of which Mr. Biden shares Visit newly.
After his visit to Allentown, Biden told reporters that he was “really reassured that what we did had an impact not just here in eastern Pennsylvania and — but also — in the Northeast, but across the country. “And we will do more.”
Mrs. Brainard A. was cited as a martyr Treasury Department analysis It found that low-emission energy investments spurred by Mr. Biden’s climate law have disproportionately boosted low-income regions and communities that were historically dependent on fossil fuels, though it did not offer a new or broader analysis of how administrative spending would specifically help. Hit areas.
Ms. Brainard noted that the Allentown area, for example, has seen a “boom” in job creation and small business establishment under Biden, after including investments directed by the administration into roads and airports in the area and elsewhere. But it did not explicitly link this spending to those trends.
Administration officials acknowledge that many of Mr. Biden’s programs to help hard-hit communities are still in their infancy, and that their impacts may be difficult to assess yet. But Ms. Brainard, in an interview before the speech, said it was fair for Mr. Biden to claim credit for gains in areas like Allentown and Milwaukee.
“In many left-behind communities, unemployment rates have been well above the national average for years,” she said. “And what you’re seeing in those communities now is that unemployment rates have actually dropped below 4 percent, which is, in some cases, a level that we haven’t seen in a very long time.”
The unemployment rate in the Allentown area was 3.9 percent in November, according to the Department of Labor. That’s down from nearly 9.5% after the 2008 financial crisis and 4.2% on the eve of the pandemic in February 2020, when Donald J. Trump was president. In November, unemployment was 3.1 percent in the Milwaukee area, the same rate as in February 2020, and down from 10 percent after the 2008 recession.
Mr. Trump has long promised on the campaign trail and in the White House to revitalize hard-hit American communities. He’s making similar promises as he tries to defeat Biden this fall, a looming counterpoint over the president’s place-based efforts.
In her speech, Ms. Brainard described Mr. Biden’s place-based policies as an antidote to what the administration calls the failed promises of “trickle-down economics,” including those practiced by the previous administration. This term has long been associated with the Republican Party’s tax policies. By lowering interest rates on high-income earners and corporations, as conservative economists have long maintained, policymakers would promote rapid economic growth that would raise the incomes of all workers.
The Biden administration has tried to expand this catchphrase to include the outsourcing of jobs and factories to foreign shores.
The tax cut law Trump signed in 2017 included deep cuts in corporate and individual tax rates, but it also included a place-based program: a tax-based incentive called Opportunity Zones, which seeks to entice investors to invest their money in specific low-income funds. Regions. The program has continued under Biden, even as his aides debated whether to try to change it. When asked in an interview before the speech whether the administration judged this program a success, Ms. Brainard did not answer directly.
“I have been very focused on making sure the president’s policies are implemented and have an impact in uplifting these communities,” Ms. Brainard said. “That was my focus.”