Raising taxes on companies and high earners, she said, is also crucial for funding investments in infrastructure, labor-force development and tax breaks for strategic industries like semiconductors.
“This is not trickle-down economics,” she said. “It’s investing in ways that, really, everybody knows we need to invest but just haven’t.”
Income Gain
In Chicago Thursday, Yellen is laying out the Biden administration’s pitch on how the president’s economic strategy is paying off.
“It’s important for people to understand there is an economic agenda that is focused on the middle class,” she said. It’s “not just a set of isolated bills that were passed.”
Biden policies have helped spur a 37% increase in median wealth between 2019 and 2022, adjusted for inflation, she said in her prepared remarks Thursday in Chicago.
Yellen cited a new Treasury analysis showing that today’s median-earning worker can “buy the same goods and services as in 2019, with nearly $1,400 left over to save or spend.” A Treasury spokesman said the statistics were based on Treasury’s internal analysis of consumer price inflation and weekly earnings data.
Yellen’s Chicago appearance comes hours after the government reported a 3.3% gain for annualized gross domestic product last quarter, beating all estimates in Bloomberg’s survey.
The larger question is whether her message will resonate with voters, especially in swing states like Wisconsin, which Yellen will visit Friday.
Recent public opinion polls show Trump holding a lead over Biden.
This article was provided by Bloomberg News.