Fulfilling a campaign promise, earlier this month, President Joe Biden reversed regulations implemented by the previous administration that had made it more difficult from victims to bring complaints for sexual assault. The new protections broaden the narrowed definition of what constitutes sexual harassment, and finally broaden Title IX to cover gay, transgender, and pregnant people.
President Joe Biden continues to forgive loans whose programs have taken advantage of borrowers by their unfair terms. The recipients of these forgiveness programs are lower income borrowers, people who have made at least 10 years of payments if they originally took out $12,000 or less in loans to pay for college, public servants like teachers and government employees, and over 65,000 people who met the terms of their loans, only to find themselves still in debt. After the Supreme Court blocked President Biden’s forgiveness of $400 billion in loans, the Biden administration continues to attack the problem piecemeal. Thus far, Biden has forgiven over 4.3 million student borrowers and a total debt of $153 billion, and counting.
On Wednesday March 20, 2024, President Joe Biden issued one of the most significant climate regulations in the nation’s history, a rule designed to ensure that the majority of new passenger cars and light trucks sold in the United States are all-electric or hybrids by 2032.
President Joe Biden has reached an agreement with Samsung to deploy $6.4 Billion to develop a chip manufacturing and research cluster in Texas. The project is projected to create 17,000 construction jobs and 4,500 manufacturing jobs.
As of today, April 24, 2024, 13 states have unemployment rates under 3%, and 37 states have unemployment rates under 4%. See the state by state rates here. In fact, 34 of the 50 states have hit their lowest unemployment rates during the administration of President Joe Biden.
On April 19, 2024, President Joe Biden struck a blow for conservation, Alaska’s indigenous populations, and endangered species in taking this action, which also included the rejection of an application for a 210 mile road through the Alaskan wilderness. In a statement, President Biden said that Alaska’s “majestic and rugged lands and waters are among the most remarkable and healthy landscapes in the world,” are critical to Alaska Native communities, and “demand our protection.” The Tanana Chiefs Conference, an Alaska Native nonprofit corporation, said the administration’s “choice to reject the Ambler Road Project is a monumental step forward in the fight for Indigenous rights and environmental justice.”
President Joe Biden hosted Prime Minister Fumio Kishida for a state dinner at the White House, part of his visit in which the US and Japan announced a number of important financial, technologicial, and military initiatives. The two nations will also welcome President Ferdinand Marcos, Jr. for tri-lateral talks, strenghtening US presence in the Philippines, again, as part of an effort to offset China’s increasing presence in the area. Over 70 deals between the US and Japan were announced, including technology partnerships, and assistance from Japan on the development of high speed trains in the US. Manay of the initiatives are intended to address climate concerns, including a partnership in the development of fusion energy.
On March 18, 2024, President Joe Biden signed an executive order significantly expanding women’s health care research, as well as 20 additional actions in various federal agencies targeting improvements in women’s health, including $200 million for research at the National Institute of Health.
The new regulations, issued by the EPA under the direction of President Joe Biden, will primarily affect people living near industrial sites. Those people are disproportionately poor and people of color. The new rule would, among other things, cut toxic pollutants by 6,200 tons annually and reduce emissions of ethylene oxide and chloroprene by 80 percent. Biden again demonstrates that he is making government work for all Americans, in that these regulations will largely benefit communities in Louisiana, Texas, other locations on the Gulf Coast, West Virginia, and the Ohio River Valley, predominantly red states Biden is aware will not be voting for him in November. A more detailed list of the regulations is in this EPA Press Release.
As of Result of President Joe Biden’s CHIPS and Science Act, South Korea’s SK Hynix has announced that it will build an advanced chip-packaging facility in West Lafayette, Indiana, and expects to create up to 1,000 jobs. This is just one example of private enterprise investments created by the CHIPS and Science Act.
In March, 2021, one of the first major pieces of legislationenacted by President Joe Biden was the American Rescue Plan. One of the major aspects of this mammoth stimulus package was its focus on public education. 3 years later, the Plan has had signficant positive impact on America’s public education system, K-12 and at the collegiate level. Here’s a list, courtesy of Wikipedia, of some of the education oriented provisions of the American Rescue Plan:
Happy Tax Day! While no one is ever excited to be calling the government regarding tax questions, sometimes, you need help from the IRS. The Inflation Reduction Act, signed by President Joe Biden in 2022, increased funding for key aspects of the IRS. As a result, the averge call wait time has been reduced from 27 minutes in 2022 to 4 minutes in 2023, and the percentage of people speaking to an actual human has increased from 15% to 87% over the same period. 2 million more calls were answered in 2023 than 2022. It may not be exciting, but there is something to be said for basic competence.
In August, 2022 President Joe Biden signed the PACT Act, which gives potential relief to service members who were exposed to toxins in the line of duty, and to their families. In its second year, the PACT Act has driven a 30 percent increase in VA healthcare enrollment. According to The Wounded Warrior Project, the PACT Act represents the largest expansion of benefits for veterans and their survivors in decades.
On April 10, 2024, the EPA, at the direction of President Joe Biden, has set stringent new standards regarding the presence of certain per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, known as PFAS, in the US drinking water supply. This is the first time the US has ever regulated these toxic, cancer-causing chemicals. The Biden Administration is deploying funds allocated in the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law to help fund states’ efforts to test and treat their local water supplies to attempt to eliminate PFAs.
President Joe Biden is taking a number of coordinated actions designed to prevent the supply chain problems that greeted him in 2021, create new efficiencies in the economy, and lower costs to families. Here’s a list of some of these actions.
President Joe Biden is putting an additional $225 million into funding repairs, upgrades, and replacements of manufacturing homes. It is also freeing up capital for FHA backed loans and restricting the right of landlords to add non-rent fees to beneficiaries of affordable housing programs.
March’s Jobs data is in, and it is, again, very good news. Thanks to President Joe Biden’s handling of the economy, including several major pieces of legislation like the CHIPS and Sciences Act, the economy added 303,000 non-farm jobs in the month of March. That brings to over 15 million the number of jobs added to the economy since Biden became president. Not only that, but the unemployment rate dropped to 3.8%, extending what was already the longest stretch of sub-4% unemployment since the 1960s.
In October, 2021, President Joe Biden reversed the previous administration’s elimination of protections on significant pieces of the sacred and spectacularly beautiful Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monuments. These protections have been restored and the protected areas have been expanded. And, because competence matters as much as good intent, the executive actions were written well enough to survive the inevitable attack by the state of Utah. Aside from the unspoiled beauty of these monuments, they are also the birthplace of many Hopi and other indigenous peoples.
In President Biden’s first year, the economy added 6.6 million jobs , the greatest first year employment increase in the history of the U.S., beating previous records by over two million jobs.
PERSPECTIVE: In 45’s first year, the economy only added two million jobs.
Among the many pro-environment tax incentives included in the Inflation Reduction Act, President Joe Biden made sure to include a 15% minimum corporate tax on some of the largest corporations in the US, some of whom have previously found a way to pay no corporate taxes at all. Here’s an analysis of some of the most relevant provisions.
While the nation has been focused on the inflation rise, the facts are that, while inflation accelerated starting in June, 2020, prior to President Joe Biden assuming the office of presidency, wages began to jump in early 2021, By July, 2022, inflation began to plummet. By May, 2023, and continuing to today, wages have outpaced inflation. Here’s a chart covering both trends.
President Joe Biden signed the Inflation Reduction Act, which accomplishes many things in many areas of the economy, some of which have already been discussed here. Among the provisions is the cap on prescription drug expenses for Medicare Part D enrollees at $2,000 a year, starting next year.
