Joe Biden’s Economic Vision for America

By: Ryan Spiegel and Josh Sugarman

“You know, when President Kennedy announced the ‘Moon Shot’ he used the phrase that has stuck with me my whole life. He said, ‘We are doing it because we refuse to postpone.’ Well, I refuse to postpone one more minute – spending billions of dollars on curing cancer, Alzheimer’s, and other diseases – which if we invest in them, we can find cures. I refuse to postpone giving every single child regardless of zip code, the access to education from Pre-K all the way through twelfth grade and beyond. This is the United States of America. There has never been a single solitary time where we have set our mind to something, and have been unable to do it. We are the best-equipped nation in the world to take on these issues and we must no longer postpone. There are enormous, enormous opportunities to progress once we get rid of Donald Trump.” 

Joe Biden gave this address over one year ago, on September 12th, 2019. Since then, Donald Trump has continued to fail the American people with his economic agenda, failing to provide adequate economic stimulus to the American people. After relief measures ran out, Trump and his cronies vehemently opposed an increase to the $600 Unemployment Insurance benefits that Americans briefly had access to. His administration also stopped funding for Social Security, which allows employers to defer withholding and paying the 6.2% employee share of the Social Security payroll tax for workers making less than $2,000 per week. 

Economic revitalization must start with education. Biden has recognized the importance of educating youth and attempting to diminish the gap between the wealthy and the poor. Biden will invest in teachers, by giving them the ‘pay and dignity’ they deserve. He wants to make sure that no child is denied quality education simply because of their zip code. Along those lines, when confronted with the question “Why should black people support Joe Biden,” the president-elect responded by linking the importance of education to future economic prosperity. He plans to increase Title I funding for low-income schools from $15 billion per year to $45 billion, provide funding for pre-school options for 3, 4 and 5-year-olds and help schools pay for more social workers and psychologists. Biden also highlighted a proposal for $70 billion in new funding for historically black colleges and universities.

Biden’s tax plan aims to force the wealthy, as well as corporations, to pay their fair share, and to provide tax relief for working families. His policy stipulates that he will not increase taxes for those earning under $400,000 a year. It also states that he will enact more than a dozen tax cuts for the middle class, giving these families the financial support they need for success. Included in these tax cuts are tax credits that help working families afford health insurance, help working families afford child care or the care of elderly family members and help families buy their first homes and accumulate wealth.

Biden will also ensure that the rich and big corporations pay their fair share by raising the corporate tax rate to 28%, which is up from the current 21% established by the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. Both rates are still lower than the 35% corporate tax rate under President Obama. Other tax code changes include a 21% minimum tax on foreign earnings by US companies, a tax penalty on corporations that ship jobs overseas and sell products back to the United States, a 15% minimum tax on a company’s earnings before taxation and an increase of the top personal income tax rate back to 39.6%. 

In terms of employment rates, Biden plans to mobilize Americans to address four major challenges facing the United States. The first is a generally outsourced American supply chain. Biden has recognized the danger of American dependency on other countries during crises, so he has launched a plan to bring production back to the United States. This will spark an increase of manufacturing, distribution and technology jobs across the country. To further the policy’s economic impact, Biden will “build a strong industrial base and small business-led supply chains to retain and create millions of good-paying union jobs in manufacturing and technology across the country.” 

Biden’s second focal issue is climate change and global warming. With 3 million Americans already employed in the clean energy economy, Biden believes that he can leverage this position to address the economic recession while reducing our country’s emissions. The president-elect plans to make a “historic” $400 billion dollar investment in energy, climate, infrastructure research and innovation. This plan aims to employ more than 10 million Americans, and will lead the country to technological breakthroughs, creating new and clean industries, dramatically reducing emissions and inevitably producing even more jobs. This plan keeps long term growth in mind. Infrastructure is known to be a sustainable investment, and this allocation of funds will fortify our economy, making us more resilient to future crises. 

Biden’s third national challenge is easing the burden of child and elder care. The COVID-19 pandemic has exposed the difficulty of working and providing for a family while caring for youth and elders. Biden’s plan will address this unfair social issue while facilitating economic progress. He will increase access to affordable childcare, and ensure that the elderly have access to quality care. He will also increase pay, benefits and professional opportunities for caregivers and educators. All of this will create dozens of new jobs in these areas and “free up millions of people to join the labor force and grow a stronger economy in return.” 

The fourth and final issue addressed by Biden’s economic plan is racial equality. The Biden campaign has recognized the threat of systemic racism, and vows to mitigate it by “[closing] the racial wealth gap, [expanding] affordable housing, [investing] in Black, Latino, and Native American entrepreneurs and communities, [advancing] policing and criminal justice reform, and [making] real the promise of educational opportunity regardless of race or zip code.” However, he has not specified how he will achieve this goal.

Aside from the four major challenges touched on by his economic plan, the president-elect has made sure to support and value the immigrants who are being mistreated and abused by the Trump administration. Biden understands that immigration and the economy are intertwined. So, he will utilize this fact to ameliorate two issues: the unfair treatment of immigrants and the struggling economy. He recognizes that the country offers a refuge from danger and provides a safe place to build a family; Biden wants to extend this privilege to all. He also sees the potential that immigrants hold as individuals who can contribute to the economy. 

According to the National Bureau of Economic Research’s July 2020 study, immigrants are 80% more likely to become entrepreneurs than their US-born counterparts. This study also showed that in comparison to companies founded by US-born entrepreneurs, those founded by foreign-born individuals actually created 42% more jobs, regardless of company size. So in accordance with his dream to give all those who want a safe place to live, and make the US an economically prosperous country, he will expand legal immigration and offer citizenship for about 11 million individuals who are currently in the country illegally. Thus, through Biden’s prioritization of immigrants, the economy could see a much-needed resurgence.

Biden understands that we cannot fully rebuild our economy until we have dealt with the COVID-19 pandemic. The president elect and his Vice President-Elect Kamala Harris have created a seven step plan to beat the virus. Their first order of business, as listed on their website, is to “Fix Trump’s testing-and-tracing fiasco.” They will do this by doubling the number of drive-through testing sites, investing in newer and more reliable testing, creating a Pandemic Testing Board to expedite the distribution and production of tests and mobilizing at least 100,000 Americans to better our contact tracing system. Their second goal is to solve the lack of personal protective equipment that our country has faced and continues to face. They will use the Defense Production Act to increase production of PPE and create a tremendous national supply of personal protective equipment, focusing on the hardest-hit areas. 

The duo’s third objective is to effectively communicate the coronavirus guidelines to the American people, as well as provide businesses with resources to help follow these guidelines. This will be done by working closely with the nation’s leading scientists, establishing a fund for state and local governments to help prevent budget shortfalls, calling on congress to give schools the resources they need to operate during the pandemic and providing a “Restart Package” that helps small businesses cover the cost of operating within the COVID-19 guidelines. Biden’s fourth step to beat the virus is to plan for the effective distribution of a vaccine. He will increase investment in vaccine manufacturing and distribution, put scientists in charge of all decisions regarding vaccine safety and efficacy and ensure that the vaccine gets to all Amerians cost-free. 

Biden’s fifth step is to protect those at a higher risk from COVID. He plans to “establish a COVID-19 Racial and Ethnic Disparities Task Force, and create the Nationwide Pandemic Dashboard that Americans can check in real-time to help them gauge whether local transmission is actively occurring in their zip codes.” Step six in the Biden-Harris plan is to “expand the defenses to predict, prevent, and mitigate pandemic threats.” This step will be done by restoring the White House National Security Council Directorate for Global Health Security and Biodefense, fostering a relationship with the World Health Organization, restarting the U.S. Agency for International Development’s pathogen-tracking and expanding the number of CDC’s disease detectives. The Biden Administration’s final step to recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic is to mandate the use of masks nationwide. Biden will get this done by working with US governors and mayors. A Biden White House will overcome COVID-19, and once it does, Joe Biden’s vision for the next 4 years will come to fruition.

Biden sees the economic blunder that is the COVID-19 pandemic as an opportunity to reimagine American society. Today’s unemployment rate is higher than it was in the Great Recession, and millions have lost their jobs, pay, health care and/or businesses. However, the pandemic has not only crushed our economy, but our society as a whole. It has exposed the rampant racial prejudices held by Americans, highlighted the difficulty that women face in our country and shown many more inequalities as well. Nevertheless, the President elect will hold true to his visions and aspirations, fixing the wrongdoings of Donald Trump and building our society back better – with an emphasis on equality and justice. Listed under Joe’s Vision, on Biden’s campaign website, he will “support educators and students, improve racial economic equality, strengthen tribal nations, tackle the climate emergency, empower and protect women, support essential workers, empower unions and workers, and advance LGBTQ+ equality.” 

Joe Biden represents all Americans: those who voted for him, and those who didn’t. At the end of the day, we are all Americans, and we will get through these trying times together. Under Biden’s leadership, we can revitalize our economy and restore our faith in this country.