President Joe Biden touted the Bureau of Economic Analysis’s strong gross domestic product report as an outgrowth of his plan to grow “the economy from the middle out and the bottom up.”
The BEA’s report, adjusted for inflation, showed the economy growing 3.3% in the fourth quarter of 2023, outpacing projections and allaying concerns of a recession. For the entire year, GDP grew 2.5% on average, with a 3.1% relative change compared to the year prior.
In his statement, Biden cited the 3.1% rate change while pointing to 2.7 million jobs added amid easing core inflation.
“As a result, wages, wealth, and employment are higher now than they were before the pandemic. That’s good news for American families and American workers. That is three years in a row of growing the economy from the middle out and the bottom up on my watch,” the president wrote. “But our work is not done. I will continue to fight to lower costs — from implementing historic legislation to lower prescription drugs costs, health insurance premiums, and clean energy costs, to taking on hidden junk fees that companies use to rip off consumers, to calling on large corporations to pass on to consumers the savings they have been seeing for months now.”
The report comes as Biden launches his 2024 reelection campaign touting his economic agenda, dubbed “Bidenomics,” while trying to address very real voter dissatisfaction with nagging inflation that hit grocery bills especially hard. Biden travels to Wisconsin on Thursday to argue that Bidenomics is key to business growth and job creation.
In his statement, Biden warned that Republican victories in the coming election would “hand out massive giveaways to the wealthy and large corporations, while raising your costs and cutting Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid.”
“That’s not how we give American families more breathing room,” he concluded.
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Thursday’s report far outpaced GDP projections from the Federal Reserve last spring, which predicted an annual growth rate of just 0.5%, and marked the strongest GDP growth since 2018.
Still, the Fed has not decided on future rate hikes, and some experts are forecasting a mild recession in 2024.