Top economic aide pitches “comeback” in hard-hit America
President Joe Biden’s top economic adviser argued Monday that the administration is engineering a revival of economically disadvantaged communities across the nation, citing patterns of new federal spending and signs of economic progress in places such as Eastern Pennsylvania and Milwaukee.
Lael Brainard, who heads Biden’s National Economic Council, used a speech to the Brookings Institution in Washington to lay out a detailed blueprint of the administration’s efforts to bring jobs, investment and innovation to areas hobbled by the loss of jobs and industries.
Those “place-based” policies are often directed at former industrial strongholds that were battered by automation and foreign competition. They are a cornerstone of Biden’s economic agenda across several major pieces of legislation he has signed and a big part of his reelection pitch. Whether voters perceive them as successful could affect Biden’s chances in November, particularly in industrial swing states such as Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.
Biden “came to office determined to invest in all of America, to leave no community behind. So far, we believe it’s working,” Brainard said. “New jobs and new small businesses are creating hope. Communities that had been left behind are making a comeback.”
Place-based efforts were included in several laws that Biden signed, including those aimed at infrastructure, climate change and clean- energy production and semiconductors and other advanced manufacturing, all of which Brainard spotlighted Monday afternoon. The Commerce and Transportation departments have launched pilot programs to support neighborhoods that have historically been cut off from opportunity.
Brainard made case studies of two areas in particular:
Allentown, Pa., and Milwaukee, both of which Biden visited recently.
After his Allentown visit, Biden told reporters that he was “really reassured that what we’ve done has had an impact not just here in Eastern Pennsylvania and — but — in the Northeast, but throughout the country. And we’re going to do more.”
Brainard cited a Treasury Department analysis that finds lowemission energy investments spurred by Biden’s climate law have disproportionately boosted lower-income areas and communities that have been historically reliant on fossil fuels, though she did not provide new or broader analysis of how administration spending has specifically helped hard-hit areas.
Brainard noted that the Allentown area, for example, has experienced a “boom” in job creation and small business formation under Biden, after listing investments the administration has steered to the region’s roads, airports and more. But she did not explicitly link that spending and those trends. Administration officials acknowledge that many of Biden’s programs to help hardhit communities are still in their infancy, and that it may be difficult to assess their effects yet. But Brainard, in an interview before the speech, said it was fair for Biden to claim credit for gains in areas such as 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 moved down below 4%, which are, in some cases, a level they haven’t seen in a very long time.”
The unemployment rate in the Allentown area was 3.9% in November, according to the Labor Department. 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 Trump was president.