President Joe Biden And Vice President Kamala Harris walk from the Rose Garden of the White House to the Oval Office Friday, March 12, 2021, following their remarks celebrating the passage of the American Rescue Plan. (Official White House Photo by Adam Schultz)
Joe Biden, warming up to his first executive job of his career, has called his proposed spending bill an “infrastructure” bill. He also has called it a “jobs” bill, notes James Freeman in the WSJ. Well, it certainly is not a “jobs” bill, according to findings from the Wharton business school, which project economic decay.
A new analysis of the president’s “American Jobs Plan” from the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School finds that over the next decade the Biden scheme would reduce U.S. economic growth, capital stock, wages and hours worked. But there is something that the plan would increase—federal debt. In short, it’s a disaster for U.S. investors, workers and taxpayers.
Joe Biden’s Bizarre Claim:
“Independent analysis shows that if we pass this plan, the economy will create 19 million jobs — good jobs, blue-collar jobs, jobs that pay well.”
According to the Wharton projection, the private economy will continue to suffer. The authors have the following forecast, after noting that the tax provisions discourage investment:
The decline in capital makes workers less productive despite the increase in productivity due to more infrastructure, dragging hourly wages down by 0.7 percent in 2031 and 0.8 percent in 2050. Overall, GDP is 0.9 percent lower in 2031 and 0.8 percent lower in 2050.
Biden’s suspect claim was highly misleading, continues Mr. Freeman.
… even if one buys the analysis from the source cited by the White House—a report from government-friendly economist Mark Zandi and a colleague at Moody’s Analytics—their report also forecast that more than 16 million jobs would be created if the plan did not pass and Mr. Biden just left the economy alone.
As for the long term, Mr. Freeman is not optimistic:
The new Wharton report should certainly give lawmakers pause, given all the economic destruction it projects.
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