On Thursday night, President Joe Biden will deliver his election-year State of the Union address. A spate of new opinion polls released over the weekend highlighted the serious challenges facing him as he seeks reëlection: concerns about his age, the southern border, the Israel-Hamas war, and the economy. The RealClearPolitics poll average currently shows him trailing Donald Trump by two points in a head-to-head contest, and by 2.8 points when third-party candidates are included.
And my Administration, together with Congress, has taken a number of unprecedented steps to boost the economy and make it stronger for the longer term, including passing the American Rescue Plan Act, the Inflation Reduction Act, the bipartisan infrastructure law, and the CHIPS Act. How have these pieces of legislation worked out? Well, one way to gauge the results is to look at the manufacturing sector.