Do voters feel ‘better off’ than four years ago? Biden and Trump ask. Complicated (Part-2).

Remember he said inject bleach?” In Houston, Biden asked. After laughing, Biden said, “I think he must’ve done it.” Biden's team released an ad spotlighting Trump's most problematic 2020 moments, including the bleach comment, his self-assessment that his pandemic response was a “10,” and his “it is what it is” take on virus deaths.

Biden's assertions were refuted by Trump's press secretary Karoline Leavitt. “Joe Biden and his media allies can cherry-pick numbers from the worst of the COVID crisis all they want, but Americans know Biden has been a disaster and they were far better off under President Trump, which is why President Trump continues to crush Biden in the polls,” she

Four years ago, voters slammed Trump's pandemic management, which cost him the White House and killed over 1.1 million Americans. However, Biden struggled to limit new strains and increase immunization rates for Trump's life-saving doses, resulting in most of those deaths.

Thus, “better-off” might mean many things. “Today, the answer is unequivocally ‘it depends,’” said Republican strategist Alex Conant. After the pandemic, nobody blames Trump for originating it or crediting him with the vaccines that stopped it. After historic inflation, the economy is recovering, but people are still upset. The answer is ambiguous for most people, hence the election outcome is unclear this far out.

He added: “I don't think any voters want to go back to the dark days of 2020, but judging by the poll numbers, most voters don't like 2024 very much either.”

Voters did benefit from enormous government aid during the outbreak. Their bank accounts expanded significantly while coronavirus closures kept inflation and interest rates low. According to OMB, budget deficits totaled $3.1 trillion in 2020 and roughly $2.8 trillion in 2021, paying for those supposed advantages with government borrowing.

Each of the three pandemic aid rounds raised average annual incomes. The bottom 50% of U.S. earners' average disposable income after inflation rose to $46,000 in March 2021 thanks to Biden's coronavirus alleviation, according to Berkeley economists

The average disposable income dropped to $26,100 in March 2023. Even though their wages are better than before the pandemic in early 2020, people may feel worse off. To contrast with Trump in his reelection campaign, Biden is trying to put a forward-looking spin on the backward-looking subject.

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