WASHINGTON: Joe Biden will almost certainly be the last U.S. president born as a member of the"silent generation" demographic group who were children during World War Two, came of age in an economic boom that built middle class wealth, and cemented the role of the United States as the world's leading industrial power.
Biden's plan harkens to the Democratic leaders of his young adult years in the 1960s - President John Kennedy’s aspirational focus on public ventures such as the moon landing, or Lyndon Johnson's Great Society push to strengthen the social safety net. It also echoes President Dwight Eisenhower's 1956 act for the government to mostly pay for building Interstate Highways."I am struck by the scale, the structure," MIT economics professor Simon Johnson said of Biden's plan.
The share of U.S. GDP paid to wages and salaries has declined as well, which many economists believe contributes to rising inequality. "We’ve fallen back," he said."The rest of the world is closing in and closing in fast. We can’t less this continue.”