Biden is spending to stave off a recession — until after the election

The Nobel Prize-winning economist Robert Solow said in the 1980s, “You can see the computer age everywhere but in the productivity statistics.”

The same could be said of American economic growth under President Joe Biden.

Since January 2021, when Biden entered office, the economy has grown around 6.1%.

While this is not stellar growth, it is still growth in a world economy mired in stagnation.

Biden’s real trick, however, is not economic growth but employment.

In the past few months, we’ve seen unemployment rates as low as 3.4% — these sorts of rates haven’t been seen since America’s golden age of economic growth in the late 1960s.

Yet apart from the growth and unemployment figures, almost every other major indicator is signaling the economy is either close to or in a recession.

The Purchasing Managers’ Index, which publishes surveys of manufacturing orders, has been showing the sector contracting almost continuously since October 2022.

The services PMI has fared somewhat better but is once again showing slowdown.

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