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Economists sometimes speak of a “misery index”. This means the sum of the percentage points of unemployment and inflation. This is the development of this index in the US in recent decades: when Ronald Reagan was re-elected it was 11.4 percent, for George W. Bush it was 9 percent and for Barack Obama it was 9.6 percent. Joe Biden beats them all by far: his misery index is currently at 7.7 percent.

As Bill Clinton once said, “It’s the economy, stupid!”. In other words, the current US president is pursuing far more successful economic policies than most of his predecessors in the past 40 years. David Brooks, columnist in the “New York Times”, therefore draws the logical conclusion: “Actually, Biden should be easily on his way to re-election.”

More on why it’s not later. But first, it’s about showing what the US president’s economic policies are all about.

In the 1980s, Ronald Reagan initiated an economic policy that was soon copied worldwide and hence also called “Reaganomics”. Essentially, this policy consisted of privatizing state-owned enterprises, lowering taxes, trade barriers, and market regulation. This, according to the theory, would awaken entrepreneurs’ “animal instincts” and propel the economy to new heights. Thanks to the “trickle down”, the newly created wealth would make happy not only a wealthy elite, but also the little man and the little woman.

Reaganomics has largely remained an ideology. In reality, it has primarily benefited a narrow elite of the super-rich. In contrast, American workers without college degrees were the main losers of this policy. Even in theory, supporters of Reaganomics have become a small minority.

A reconsideration is also taking place in economic policy practice. Jake Sullivan, the national security adviser and unsung star of the Biden administration, delivered a veritable swan song for Reaganomics in a landmark speech a few weeks ago. The efficiency of free markets and the benefits of free trade are exaggerated, Sullivan said. The US needs a new industrial policy, one that “goes beyond traditional trade agreements” and will lead to “new international economic partners”.

Joe Biden has consistently implemented this new doctrine during his tenure to date. However, so far he has avoided putting his name on her. The term ‘bidenomics’ was considered an absolute no-go in the White House. That has changed in recent days. As elections approach, the president goes on the offensive, using bidenomics as a recipe for success. What exactly does he mean by that? In the Washington Post, EJ Dionne summarizes the new economic policy as follows:

In practice, this economic policy has proven its worth. As mentioned, the misery index is at an all-time low. In the first quarter, the US economy grew by 2 percent of gross domestic product, almost twice as much as forecast. And this time, it’s not an already wealthy elite that benefits. In the first two years of the Biden administration, 800,000 new jobs were created in factories, jobs that mainly benefit workers without college degrees, which is about 70 percent of the workforce.

Moreover, rural areas benefit above average from the new government support measures. Politics can be so dire that the “red” states that tend to vote Republican can reap the benefits of bidenomics.

The success of bidenomics has also spread around the world. Australian officials and British opposition politicians are making a pilgrimage to Washington to see how these economic policies will work in practice. The German weekly “Die Zeit” recently accompanied Ricarda Lang, the federal chairman of the Greens, on a trip to the US and found that she also wanted to know more about the details of what she called “the most exciting political project of the moment”.

There’s only one place where the success of bidenomics isn’t pinned down, and that’s in the minds of Americans. Opinion polls paint a depressing picture: A recent NBC News poll found that 74 percent of those surveyed said the US was on the wrong track economically, and that Biden regularly received miserable numbers for his economic policies. What is going on here?

Although it is now about halved, inflation is still an important factor in the gloomy sentiment. For Johnny Sixpack, the price of gas is still more or less the sole determinant of his economic well-being. He prefers not to ponder even the most banal economic issues.

In addition, the Trump era is wrongly idealized. It is true that Americans under Trump had solid economic growth without significant inflation until the pandemic. Only this was less the merit of the former president than his predecessor Barack Obama, who had laid the foundations for it. Trump was just incredibly lucky.

The ex-president promised the little man a lot, but delivered little. His greatest economic achievement was a tax cut that benefited the super-rich. Trump’s announcement that he would finally invest in America’s ailing infrastructure, creating new jobs for undergraduates, turned into a bad joke.

The Republicans currently have little or nothing to offer economically. Trump is still mourning his lost election and in the House of Representatives, the Grand Old Party representatives are reenacting the countless chapter of the gossip theater about Hunter Biden and his “laptop from hell.”

All of this is extremely unfair to the sitting president, but it doesn’t change the fact that Biden has to go through it. Not only must he pursue a successful economic policy, he must also succeed in making it understandable to voters.