Pablo Martinez Monsivais/AP Photo
As I write, I’m aware that all of you who read this are fretting about tonight’s Harris-Trump debate (which I’ll be covering for the Prospect), coming as it does in the wake of polls showing the race effectively tied, with perhaps a slight edge for Trump. I’m aware that every pundit and at least half of the non-pundits have already written about what, from their point of view, needs to happen tonight. I really have nothing new to add to that chorus, so I’ll merely repeat that at a time when the gender gap among young voters is at record highs, Harris needs to talk about the jobs her administration will create in construction as well as those it will create in what she terms “the care economy.”
That said (again), let me call your attention to a report on the economy that the Census Bureau released today that makes a very strong case for Bidenomics and Kamalanomics—not, alas, that it’s going to change many voters’ minds. The report shows that inflation-adjusted median household income rose by 4 percent in 2023, to $80,610—putting it in a tie with the pre-pandemic 2019 as the highest level ever. Remarkably (as was not the case in 2019), incomes increased more among the poorest Americans (those at the 10th percentile, by 6.7 percent) than the richest (those at the 90th percentile, by 4.6 percent). As the Economic Policy Institute points out, these gains are the result of the fiscal and recovery policies that the Biden administration and the Democratic Congress enacted in 2021-2022, which created a historically worker-friendly tight labor market.
One of the two presidential candidates not only supports those policies but argues for enhancing them by increasing the Child Tax Credit, making child care more affordable, and authorizing the government to bargain down the price of prescription drugs. I suspect we’ll hear about that later tonight.
