biden homeworkers

Biden’s Numbers, January 2024 Update

Our latest quarterly look at various statistical measures during Biden's presidency.

By Eugene Kiely , Brooks Jackson , D'Angelo Gore , Robert Farley , Lori Robertson and Sean Christensen

Posted on January 25, 2024

Para leer en español, vea esta traducción de Google Translate.

Here’s how the United States has fared since President Joe Biden took office three years ago:

The economy added more than 14 million jobs. The number is now nearly 4.9 million higher than before the pandemic.
The unemployment rate dropped back to just above the pre-pandemic low; unfilled job openings again outnumber unemployed job seekers.
Inflation spiked to the highest level in over 40 years. Despite recent moderation, consumer prices are up nearly 18% overall during Biden’s time. Gasoline is up 29%.
Average weekly earnings haven’t kept pace with prices. After adjusting for inflation, “real” weekly earnings declined 3.4%.
Defying expectations, the nation’s economy expanded 2.5% in 2023, marking the third straight year of economic growth.
Crime data show a decrease in murders in U.S. cities in 2022 and 2023.
The S&P 500 has increased 28.2%.
The number of apprehensions of those trying to cross the southern border illegally remains near historical highs. For the 12 months ending in November, apprehensions are up 296%.
For the third straight year, gun purchases declined, as measured by background checks for firearm sales.
Crude oil production is up 12.7%; imports are up 8.7%.
The trade deficit for goods and services is about 20.9% higher.
The number of people without health insurance has gone down; enrollment in Affordable Care Act marketplace plans is at its highest point yet.
The number of people receiving federal food assistance has declined by more than 700,000.
The publicly held debt has increased by about 24.7%.

Biden, who appears to be headed for a rematch with former President Donald Trump, is going into an election year with some favorable and unfavorable numbers. Unemployment is down, and consumer confidence is rising. But overall inflation is high, and wages aren’t keeping pace with inflation.

Here, we present those and other statistical measures in our latest installment of our quarterly feature, “Biden’s Numbers .” We take no position on how much credit or blame Biden deserves, following the same approach we took when we did “ Trump’s Numbers .”

Jobs and Unemployment

The number of people with jobs rebounded strongly during Biden’s time, surpassing pre-pandemic levels by almost 4.9 million.

Employment — The U.S. economy added 14,263,000 jobs between Biden’s inauguration and December, the latest month for which data are available from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The December figure is 4,861,000 higher than the February 2020 peak of employment before COVID-19 forced massive shutdowns and layoffs.

Some categories are still lagging, however. There were 28,000 fewer public school teachers and other local government education workers in December than there were at the pre-pandemic peak, and 183,000 fewer hotel and restaurant workers and others in the accommodation and food services industries.

Unemployment — The unemployment rate fell from 6.4% at the time Biden took office to 3.4% in January 2023 and again in April, the lowest since June 1969. Since then, the rate has crept up — but only to 3.7% in December, just 0.2 point above the pre-pandemic rate.

Job Openings — The number of unfilled job openings soared, reaching a record of over 12 million in March 2022, but then declined after the Federal Reserve began a steep series of interest rate increases aimed at cooling the economy to bring down price inflation.

The number of unfilled jobs was just under 8.8 million as of the last business day of November, the most recent month on record. That’s still an increase of over 1.6 million openings — or nearly 23% — during Biden’s time.

In November, there was an average 1.4 jobs for every unemployed job seeker . When Biden took office, there were fewer job openings than unemployed job seekers.

The number of job openings in December is set to be released Jan. 30.

Labor Force Participation — One reason many job openings go unfilled is that millions of Americans left the workforce during the pandemic and haven’t returned. The labor force participation rate (the percentage of the total population over age 16 that is either employed or actively seeking work) has risen slowly during Biden’s time, from 61.3% in January 2021 to 62.5% in December.

That still leaves the rate somewhat short of the pre-pandemic level of 63.3% for February 2020.

The rate has been trending generally down for nearly a quarter of a century. It peaked at 67.3% during the first four months of 2000. Labor Department economists project that the rate will continue to slide down to 60.1% in 2031, “primarily because of an aging population.”

Manufacturing Jobs — During the presidential campaign, Biden promised he had a plan to create a million new manufacturing jobs — and whether it’s his doing or not, the number is getting close to that target.

As of December, the U.S. added 790,000 manufacturing jobs during Biden’s time, a 6.5% increase in the space of 35 months, according to the BLS. Furthermore, the December total is 201,000, or 1.6%, above the number of manufacturing jobs in February 2020, before the pandemic forced plant closures and layoffs.

During Trump’s four years, the economy lost 170,000 manufacturing jobs, or 1.4%, largely due to the pandemic.

Wages and Inflation

CPI — Inflation came roaring back under Biden. During his first 35 months in office, the Consumer Price Index rose 17.6%.

It was for a time the worst inflation in decades. The 12 months ending in June 2022 saw a 9.1% increase in the CPI (before seasonal adjustment), which the Bureau of Labor Statistics said was the biggest such increase since the 12 months ending in November 1981.

Inflation has moderated greatly since then. The unadjusted CPI rose 3.4% in the 12 months ending in December , the most recent figure available.

Gasoline Prices — The price of gasoline shot up even faster.

During the week ending Jan. 22, the national average price of regular gasoline at the pump was $3.06. That’s 68 cents higher than in the week before Biden took office, an increase of 29%.

The price swung wildly during Biden’s first year and a half, hitting a record high of just over $5 per gallon in the week ending June 13, 2022. That rise was propelled by motorists resuming travel after pandemic lockdowns and then by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24, 2022.

Wages — Wages also have gone up under Biden, but not as fast as prices.

Average weekly earnings for rank-and-file workers went up 14.2% during Biden’s first 35 months in office, according to monthly figures compiled by the BLS. Those production and nonsupervisory workers make up 81% of all employees in the private sector.

But inflation ate up all that gain and more. “Real” weekly earnings, which are adjusted for inflation and measured in dollars valued at their average level in 1982-84, actually declined 3.4% since Biden took office.

More recently, real wages have been increasing, rising 1.3% since hitting the low point under Biden in June 2022.

Economic Growth

After the Federal Reserve began raising interest rates in March 2022 to slow inflation, the economic consensus held that the U.S. was headed for a recession in 2023 . That turned out not to be the case .

In fact, real gross domestic product (which is adjusted for inflation) was 2.5% higher in 2023 than it was in 2022, the Bureau of Economic Analysis said in a Jan. 25 release announcing its “advance estimate.” (The advance estimate is the BEA’s first estimate, which could be adjusted slightly on Feb. 28, when updated figures with more complete data will be released.)

This marks the third straight year of economic growth under Biden. The real GDP increased 5.8% in 2021 and 1.9% in 2022 . (In 2020, Trump’s final year in office, the U.S. economy was battered by the COVID-19 pandemic, and real GDP declined 2.2% .)

The BEA also estimated that the economy increased at an annual rate of 3.3% in the fourth quarter of 2023 — marking the sixth straight quarter of economic growth, including a surprisingly strong 4.9% increase in the third quarter.

The Fed’s monetary policy was designed “to achieve a ‘soft landing’ — a return to low inflation while maintaining moderate economic growth,” as the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service explained in a report released last month. But, the CRS report added, “a majority of private sector economists had, until recently, predicted that the Fed’s actions would result in a ‘hard landing’ — a recession — in 2023.”

The economic consensus now is that the Fed has achieved a “soft landing,” and the U.S. will likely avoid a recession, according to the Wall Street Journal’s most recent quarterly survey of economists in early January.

“Business and academic economists surveyed by the Journal lowered the probability of a recession within the next year, to 39% from 48% in the October survey,” the Journal wrote on Jan. 14. That’s the lowest it has been since April 2022, when the average probability of a recession was 28%.

In December, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office projected that the nation’s economic growth will slow to 1.5% in 2024 — which, if that happens, would mean the Fed had indeed achieved a “soft landing.”

Of course, the economic consensus has been wrong before.

The available data show that homicides declined nationwide last year, though you wouldn’t know it from recently released research from the Republican National Committee. The RNC report decried 2023 as “another violent year” that “continues the violent wave of crime that has been building for the past few years, ever since the defund the police movement – championed by Democrats – began.”

The RNC report highlights a rise in homicides in Washington, D.C. , Kansas City and Memphis . While it’s true that homicides rose in those cities, figures from AH Datalytics, an independent criminal justice data analysis group, show that murders in more than 200 cities nationwide were down 12% overall in 2023 compared with 2022.

The latest figures from the Major Cities Chiefs Association show a 10.7% decline in the number of murders from Jan. 1 to Sept. 30, 2023, compared with the same time period in 2022, in 69 large U.S. cities.

There was also a drop in murders in large cities in 2022. These decreases come after a 33.4% increase in the number of murders in large cities from 2019 to 2020, according to the Major Cities Chiefs Association, and a smaller 6.2% rise from 2020 to 2021, Biden’s first year in office.

The nonpartisan think tank Council on Criminal Justice published a midyear report in 2023 on 30 U.S. cities that similarly found recent declines in homicides. However, it noted that the number for the first half of 2023 remained higher than the first half of 2019, “the year prior to the COVID pandemic and racial justice protests of 2020.”

“The authors conclude that crime patterns continue to shift as the nation has emerged from the COVID pandemic and that policymakers and communities must act urgently to adapt their strategies to meet the new challenges,” CCJ said in a summary of its report. “Though the level of serious violent crime is far below historical peaks, it remains intolerably high, especially in poorer communities of color.”

Our last “Biden’s Numbers” update in October included the just- r eleased FBI report covering 2022. Its estimates showed a drop in the nationwide murder and nonnegligent manslaughter rate of 0.5 points during Biden’s time in office, from 6.8 per 100,000 population in 2020 to 6.3 in 2022. The number of murders declined by 5.6%, totaling an estimated 21,156 last year.

The violent crime rate dropped by 15.4 points, to 369.8 per 100,000 population in 2022.

As we noted then, the decrease in murder and aggravated assaults under Biden, however, hasn’t yet brought those figures back to their 2019 levels, before an increase in both offenses during the 2020 pandemic. For instance, the 6.3 murder rate for 2022 is still higher than the 5.2 rate for 2019.

The FBI’s 2022 report is based on figures voluntarily provided by 15,724 law enforcement agencies, which represent 93.5% of the U.S. population. All U.S. cities with 1 million population or more provided statistics for the full year, the FBI said.

The property crime rate also declined a bit, by 9.5 points, from 2020 to 2022. But there was a notable increase in motor vehicle thefts: The rate increased by 35.2 points to 282.7 vehicle thefts per 100,000 people.

Immigration

The number of apprehensions of those trying to cross the southern border illegally crept back up in September, October and November, remaining near historical highs. Overall under Biden, apprehensions are dramatically higher than the apprehension numbers under Trump, according to the latest data from U.S. Customs and Border Protection.

To even out the seasonal changes in border crossings, we compare the most recent 12 months on record with the year before Biden took office. And for the past 12 months ending in November, the latest figures available, apprehensions totaled 2,012,917, according to Customs and Border Protection . That’s 296% higher than during Trump’s last year in office.

Driving much of the increase has been a boom in migrants seeking asylum. (See chart below.)

Rather than trying to sneak into the interior, most migrants are crossing into the U.S. and turning themselves over to border authorities, Colleen Putzel-Kavanaugh , an associate policy analyst at the Migration Policy Institute, told us. “They want to be encountered by border patrol agents.”

Explaining the push on the border, Putzel-Kavanaugh said, “Part of it is because migration worldwide has increased,” due to unequal recovery from the pandemic, wars/violence, the loosening of restrictions after COVID-19 and climate change. “We are seeing more turmoil around the world.”

There are also unique pull factors to the U.S., she said.

“After the Trump administration, there was a perception that Biden was the opposite of Trump on immigration,” Putzel-Kavanaugh said. “There was a perception that the U.S. was more welcoming. There was a stark difference in the way they talked about migrants.”

It’s also true that most migrants have been able to find work, she said, which acts as a draw.

Adding to the problem, she said, is that the asylum system is incredibly backlogged.

“Cases don’t come to trial until years down the line,” she said. Asylum cases are taking four to five years to come to trial. In some cases, like in New York, the backlog is even longer, she said.

Less than 15% of those seeking asylum were ultimately granted it in fiscal years 2022 and 2023, according to Justice Department statistics . But while waiting on a decision, asylum seekers obtain work authorizations, get established in jobs and their children get settled in schools, Putzel-Kavanaugh said.

According to a December report from TRAC , a nonpartisan research center at Syracuse University, the immigration court backlog reached a record of 3 million pending cases in November, after growing by a million in just one year.

“Immigration Judges are swamped,” the report stated. “Immigration Judges now average 4,500 pending cases each. If every person with a pending immigration case were gathered together, it would be larger than the population of Chicago, the third largest city in the United States.”

Republicans and Democrats alike have been calling for immigration policy changes, though their plans are very different. Biden has called for addressing the root causes of immigration by sending more assistance to improve conditions in countries like El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras. He also seeks funds to reduce immigration court and asylum application backlogs.

Republicans, meanwhile, are calling for a return to some of the policies championed by Trump, such as expanding the border wall system, reinstituting the “Remain in Mexico” policy (whereby asylum seekers had to stay in Mexico to await their court appearances), and returning to using U.S. Title 42 , a public health order that was used during the pandemic to allow border officials to immediately return migrants caught trying to enter the country illegally.

Also, House Republicans are pursuing impeachment of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas. A resolution proposed by Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene claims Mayorkas has not upheld a requirement in the Secure Fence Act of 2006 that the secretary of Homeland Security “maintain operational control” over the border, a standard that Mayorkas noted no DHS secretary has ever met to the letter of the law.

Biden continues to make slow, but steady, progress toward fulfilling his ambitious campaign promise to accept up to 125,000 refugees into the United States each fiscal year.

On Sept. 29, the Biden administration set the cap on refugee admissions for fiscal year 2024 at 125,000 – just as it did in fiscal years 2023 and 2022 .

In fiscal year 2023, which ended Sept. 30, the U.S. accepted 60,014 refugees — the highest total since fiscal year 2016, which was the last full fiscal year of the Obama-Biden administration, according to State Department data. It was also more than twice as many as the 25,465 refugees admitted in fiscal 2022.

But it still fell far short of the president’s 125,000 goal. To achieve that goal, the administration would have to admit an average of 10,417 refugees per month.

In the first three months of fiscal year 2024, the administration accepted 21,790 refugees — or 7,263 per month. That’s substantially higher than the 6,757 refugees — or 2,252 per month — who were admitted in the first three months of last fiscal year.

“Refugee admissions now are nearing a monthly pace that will, if sustained over the course of a year, enable arrival of 125,000 refugees, a 30-year high,” the State Department said in a November report to Congress . The mention of “a 30-year high” in the report refers to 1992, when the Clinton administration admitted 132,531 refugees, according to data compiled by the Migration Policy Institute.

The State Department report credited the Biden administration’s “intensive efforts to restore, strengthen, and modernize the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program” as the reason for making “significant progress” toward Biden’s 125,000 goal. (Note: Only refugees, who apply for refugee status from outside the U.S., count against the refugee admissions ceiling, as the State Department explains in its report to Congress.)

Overall, the U.S. has admitted 117,277 refugees in Biden’s first full 35 months in office, or 3,351 refugees per month, the data show. That’s 82% higher than the 1,845 monthly average during the four years under Trump, who significantly reduced the admission of refugees. (For both presidents, our monthly averages include only full months in office, excluding the month of January 2017 and January 2021, when administrations overlapped.)

Judiciary Appointments

Supreme Court — Biden has appointed one Supreme Court justice, Ketanji Brown Jackson, who was confirmed on April 7, 2022. She replaced retired Justice Stephen G. Breyer , an appointee of President Bill Clinton. At the same point of his tenure, Trump had won confirmation for two Supreme Court justices .

Court of Appeals — Thirty-nine U.S. Court of Appeals judges have been confirmed under Biden, while 50 had been confirmed at this point of Trump’s term.

District Court — Biden has won confirmation for 130 District Court judges . At the same point under Trump, 133 had been confirmed.

Four U.S. Court of Federal Claims judges have also been confirmed under Biden, while five had been confirmed at the same point of Trump’s presidency. In addition, Trump had won the confirmation for two U.S. Court of International Trade judges at this stage of his term.

As of Jan. 24, there were 60 federal court vacancies , with 23 nominees pending.

Health Insurance Coverage

The number of people without health insurance decreased by 0.7 percentage points or 2.4 million people from 2020, the year before Biden took office, to 2022. Those figures come from the Census Bureau’s annual reports , which measure those who lacked insurance for the entire year.

The latest report, published in September, found that 25.9 million people, or 7.9% of the population, didn’t have insurance in 2022.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s National Health Interview Survey provides more recent, early release estimates that measure those who lacked health insurance at the time they were interviewed. By that metric, the uninsured dropped by 1.3 percentage points, or 4 million people, from 2020 to 2022, and the latest NHIS report shows a further decline for the first nine months of 2023.

From January through June last year, 7.4% of the population was uninsured, according to the NHIS estimates, 1 percentage point lower than the figure for all of 2022.

As we have been noting , it’s possible the uninsured figures will start to rise, since some Medicaid provisions that were enacted during the coronavirus pandemic started to be phased out at the end of March last year.

Enrollment in the Affordable Care Act’s marketplace plans — for those who need to buy coverage on their own — has increased under Biden. The Department of Health and Human Services announced on Jan. 24 that 21.3 million people had selected an ACA plan during this year’s open enrollment period, the highest figure yet and about 5 million more than last year. This year’s enrollment also includes more than 5 million consumers who are new to the ACA marketplace.

Corporate Profits

After-tax corporate profits have reached new heights under Biden.

For the year, after-tax corporate profits set records in 2021 and 2022, according to BEA estimates. (See line 45.)

On Dec. 21, the BEA estimated that profits in the third quarter of 2023 grew to an annualized rate of $3.02 trillion. That was 38% higher than the full-year figure for 2020 , the year before Biden took office.

It was the third straight quarter that corporations had seen an increase in profits.

Consumer Sentiment

Under Biden, high inflation had weakened consumer confidence in the economy. But inflation has been slowing , and confidence is picking up once again.

The University of Michigan’s Surveys of Consumers reported that its preliminary Index of Consumer Sentiment for January was 78.8 — the highest since July 2021.

“Consumer sentiment soared 13% in January to reach its highest level since July 2021, showing that the sharp increase in December was no fluke,” Joanne W. Hsu, director of the Surveys of Consumers, said. “Consumer views were supported by confidence that inflation has turned a corner and strengthening income expectations. Over the last two months, sentiment has climbed a cumulative 29%, the largest two-month increase since 1991 as a recession ended.”

In June 2022, the consumer sentiment index dropped to a record-low 50, according to survey data since November 1952. But now it is almost back to where it was when Biden took office in January 2021, when the index was 79.

The Conference Board’s Consumer Confidence Survey also reported an increase in December. The group said its survey showed “a surge in confidence and restored optimism for 2024.” The Conference Board will release its next survey on Jan. 30.

Home Prices & Homeownership

Home prices — After skyrocketing in Biden’s first two years, home prices have cooled, peaking in June and declining ever since.

The preliminary median sales price of existing single-family homes in the U.S. was $387,000 in December, marking the sixth consecutive month that prices have dropped, according to the National Association of Realtors.

For the year, the median sales price was $394,600 — just a shade higher than it was in 2022. Even so, the median price in 2023 was 31.4% higher than it had been in 2020.

But NAR Chief Economist Lawrence Yun isn’t expecting the real estate dip to last much longer.

“The latest month’s sales look to be the bottom before inevitably turning higher in the new year,” Yun said in a Jan. 19 press release . “Mortgage rates are meaningfully lower compared to just two months ago, and more inventory is expected to appear on the market in upcoming months.”

Mortgage rates had been rising along with the Federal Reserve’s key interest rate. The Fed last raised its benchmark rate in July — marking the 11th increase since March 2022. In December, Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell indicated that its next move may be to cut its rate.

The 30-year fixed rate mortgage average nationwide, as of Jan. 18, dropped to 6.6% — the lowest since May, according to Freddie Mac.

Homeownership — Homeownership rates have barely budged under Biden.

The homeownership rate , which the Census Bureau measures as the percentage of “occupied housing units that are owner-occupied,” was 66% in the third quarter of 2023 — not much higher than the 65.8% rate during Trump’s last quarter in office. (Usual word of caution: The bureau warns against making comparisons with the fourth quarter of 2020, because of pandemic-related restrictions on in-person data collection.)

The rate peaked under Trump in the second quarter of 2020 at 67.9%. The highest homeownership rate on record was 69.2% in 2004, when George W. Bush was president.

Stock Markets

The stock markets have rallied since our last report, finishing 2023 strong and setting records in 2024.

All three major indexes saw double-digit increases in 2023. The S&P 500 index “ended the year with a 24.2% gain. The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose more than 13% this year, and the Nasdaq soared 43%, driven by gains in big technology companies, including Nvidia, Amazon and Microsoft,” CBS News reported on Dec. 29, the last day of trading.

That pushed all three indexes solidly into positive territory on Biden’s watch.

The S&P 500 , which is made up of 500 large-cap companies, set a new high on Jan. 24, closing at 4,868.55 . Since Biden took office, the S&P 500 has increased 28.2%. Likewise, the Dow Jones Industrial Average , which includes 30 large corporations, has increased 22.2% under Biden.

The technology-heavy NASDAQ composite index, made up of more than 3,000 companies , was in negative territory under Biden in our last report in October. But at the close on Jan. 24, the NASDAQ index was up 17.3% since Biden took office on Jan. 20, 2021 .

For the third straight year, since a spike during the pandemic, annual gun purchases appear to have declined, according to figures from the National Shooting Sports Foundation.

The federal government doesn’t collect data on gun sales, so the NSSF , a gun industry trade group, estimates gun sales by tracking the number of background checks for firearm sales based on the FBI’s National Instant Criminal Background Check System, or NICS. The NSSF-adjusted figures exclude background checks unrelated to sales, such as those required for concealed-carry permits.

The adjusted NICS total for background checks in 2023 was more than 15.8 million , the NSSF said — the fourth-highest annual total going back to 2000. But last year’s total was still about 3.5% less than in 2022, approximately 14.4% less than in 2021, and roughly 24.8% less than in 2020, the one-year record.

Oil Production and Imports

U.S. crude oil production averaged roughly 12.76 million barrels per day during Biden’s most recent 12 months in office (ending in October), according to U.S. Energy Information Administration data published in late December. That was more than 12.7% higher than the average daily amount of crude oil produced in 2020.

In its Short-Term Energy Outlook for January, the EIA projected that crude oil production averaged 12.92 million barrels per day in 2023, which would be the highest average on record. EIA also said it expects crude oil production — fueled by increases in well efficiency — to increase to 13.2 million barrels per day in 2024 and 13.4 million in 2025, which would be new records.

Still, over the last 12 months, the U.S. imported about 6.39 million barrels of crude oil per day on average. That’s up more than 8.7% from average daily imports in 2020 — but lower than the pre-pandemic average of 6.80 million barrels per day in 2019.

Carbon Emissions

There was another small decline in U.S. carbon dioxide emissions since our last report.

In the most recent 12 months on record (ending in September), there were approximately 4.82 billion metric tons of emissions from the consumption of coal, natural gas and various petroleum products, according to the EIA. That’s down from the 4.83 billion metric tons as of our last update, but it’s still about 5.2% more than the roughly 4.58 billion metric tons emitted in 2020.

As of this month, the EIA forecast that energy-related emissions for all of 2023 would total 4.78 billion metric tons — which would be lower than the amounts of 4.90 billion in 2021 and 4.94 billion in 2022.

The U.S. imported roughly $789.4 billion more in goods and services than it exported over the last 12 months through November, according to figures published this month by the Bureau of Economic Analysis. The international trade deficit in that period was $136.5 billion higher, or about 20.9% more, than the gap for the 2020 calendar year.

However, as of November, the 2023 goods and services deficit had decreased by around $161.8 billion from the same 11-month period in 2022 — putting the U.S. on pace to have a lower annual trade deficit last year than the record of $951.2 billion in 2022.

Food Stamps

Since our last quarterly update, enrollment in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, formerly known as food stamps, increased.

There were about 41.4 million beneficiaries receiving food assistance through SNAP, as of October. The figures, which are preliminary, were published by the Department of Agriculture earlier this month.

That means SNAP enrollment is up 96,392 since July — but still down 718,269, or about 1.7%, from the January 2021 enrollment of more than 42.1 million. The lowest monthly enrollment under Biden was roughly 40.8 million in August and September 2021.

Debt and Deficits

Debt — The public debt, excluding money the government owes itself, increased to more than $26.9 trillion , as of Jan. 19. The public debt is now about 24.7% higher than it was when Biden took office.

Deficits — The Congressional Budget Office estimates that so far the budget deficit for fiscal year 2024 has increased a bit compared with the same period in fiscal 2023, when the annual deficit was $1.7 trillion, according to the Department of Treasury.

Through the first three months of the current fiscal year (October to December), the deficit was $509 billion, or “$87 billion more than the deficit recorded during the same period last fiscal year,” the CBO reported in its Monthly Budget Review for December 2023.

Notably, the CBO said that outlays in the first quarter were up $170 billion from the same time a year ago — and would have been slightly higher if not for some federal payments being made in the last month of fiscal 2023 instead of the first month of fiscal 2024. A significant contributor to the increase was interest payments on the debt, the CBO said, “because interest rates are significantly higher than they were in the first three months of fiscal year 2023.”

Editor’s note: FactCheck.org does not accept advertising. We rely on grants and individual donations from people like you. Please consider a donation. Credit card donations may be made through our “Donate” page . If you prefer to give by check, send to: FactCheck.org, Annenberg Public Policy Center, 202 S. 36th St., Philadelphia, PA 19104.

U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. “ Employment, Hours, and Earnings from the Current Employment Statistics survey (National): Total Nonfarm .” Accessed 12 Jan 2024.

U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. “ Labor Force Statistics from the Current Population Survey: Unemployment .” Accessed 12 Jan 2024.

U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. “ Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey: Job Openings .” Accessed 12 Jan 2024.

U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. “ Labor Force Statistics from the Current Population Survey: Labor Force Participation Rate .” Accessed 12 Jan 2024.

U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Monthly Labor Review. “ Projections overview and highlights, 2021–31 ” Nov 2022.

U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. “ Employment, Hours, and Earnings from the Current Employment Statistics survey (National): Manufacturing .” Accessed 12 Jan 2024.

U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. “ Consumer Price Index – All Urban Consumers (Seasonally Adjusted). ” Data extracted 12 Jan 2024.

U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Consumer Price Index Summary . News release. 13 Jul 2022.

U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Consumer Price Index Summary . News release. 11 Jan 2024.

U.S. Energy Information Administration. “ Weekly U.S. Regular All Formulations Retail Gasoline Prices. ” Data extracted 23 Jan 2024.

U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. “ Employment, Hours and Earnings from the Current Employment Statistics survey (National); Average Weekly Earnings of Production and Nonsupervisory Employees, total private. ” Data extracted 12 Jan 2024.

U.S. State Department. “ Presidential Determination on Refugee Admissions for Fiscal Year 2022 .” 8 Oct 2021.

“ The Biden Plan for Securing Our Values as a Nation of Immigrants .” Biden campaign. Undated, accessed 5 Jan 2022.

State Department. “ Refugee Admissions Report .” 31 Dec 2023.

White House. “ Presidential Determination on Refugee Admissions for Fiscal Year 2023 .” 27 Sep 2022.

State Department. “ Presidential Determination on Refugee Admissions for Fiscal Year 2024 .” 29 Sep 2023.

State Department. “ Report to Congress on Proposed Refugee Admissions for Fiscal Year 2024 .” 3 Nov 2023.

“ U.S. Annual Refugee Resettlement Ceilings and Number of Refugees Admitted, 1980-Present .” Migration Policy Institute. Updated, accessed 6 Oct 2023.

Tepper, Taylor and Benjamin Curry. “ Federal Funds Rate History 1990 to 2023 .” Forbes Advisor. 17 Oct 2023.

The Conference Board. “ US recession probability reaches 96 percent heading into Q4 .” 29 Sep 2022.

U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis. “ Table 1.1.1. Percent Change From Preceding Period in Real Gross Domestic Product. ” Accessed 25 Jan 2024.

The Conference Board. “ US Consumer Confidence Increased Again in December .” 20 Dec 2023

U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis. “ Gross Domestic Product, 4th Quarter and Year 2023 (Advance Estimate) .” 25 Jan 2024.

Torry, Harriet and Anthony DeBarros. “ Economists Now Expect a Recession, Job Losses by Next Year .” Wall Street Journal. 16 Oct 2022.

Smith, Gary N. “ Recession was inevitable, economists said. Here’s why they were wrong .” MarketWatch. 22 Jan 2024.

U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis. “ Table 1.1.1. Percent Change From Preceding Period in Real Gross Domestic Product. ” Accessed 23 Jan 2024.

Mutikani, Lucia. “ COVID-19 savages U.S. economy, 2020 performance worst in 74 years .” Reuters. 28 Jan 2021.

Weinstock, Lida R. and Marc Labonte. “ Has the Federal Reserve Achieved a Soft Landing in 2023? ” Congressional Research Service. 11 Dec 2023.

Torry, Harriet and Anthony DeBarros. “ It Won’t Be a Recession—It Will Just Feel Like One .” Wall Street Journal. 14 Jan 2024.

“ CBO’s Current View of the Economy From 2023 to 2025 .” Congressional Budget Office. 15 Dec 2023.

Brown, Courtenay. “ U.S. economy will pull off soft landing in 2024, CBO projects .” Axios. 15 Dec 2023.

Wallace, Alicia. “ Consumer sentiment plunges to record low amid surging inflation .” 10 Jun 2022.

Jay, Marley. “ Inflation slows to 3.1%, signaling continued moderation of consumer price increases .” 11 Dec 2023.

University of Michigan Surveys of Consumers. “ Preliminary Results for January 2024 .” Accessed 19 Jan 2024.

University of Michigan Surveys of Consumers. “ The Index of Consumer Sentiment .” Accessed 19 Jan 2024.

US Census Bureau. “ Business and Industry: Homeownership rates. ” Accessed 22 Jan 2024.

Mateyka, Peter, and Mazur, Christopher. “ Homeownership in the United States: 2005 to 2019 .” U.S. Census Bureau. Mar 2021.

U.S. Census Bureau. “ Quarterly Residential Vacancies And Homeownership, Fourth Quarter 2021 .” 2 Feb 2022.

U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis. “ National Income by Type of Income. ” 22 Jan 2024.

Keisler-Starkey, Katherine et. al. “ Health Insurance Coverage in the United States: 2022 .” Census Bureau. Sep 2023.

Keisler-Starkey, Katherine et. al. “ Health Insurance Coverage in the United States: 2021 .” Census Bureau. 13 Sep 2022.

Tolbert, Jennifer and Meghana Ammula. “ 10 Things to Know About the Unwinding of the Medicaid Continuous Enrollment Provision .” KFF. 5 Apr 2023.

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention; National Health Interview Survey. “ Health Insurance Coverage: Early Release of Estimates From the National Health Interview Survey, 2022 .” May 2023.

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention; National Health Interview Survey. “ Health Insurance Coverage: Early Release of Estimates From the National Health Interview Survey, January–June 2023 .” Dec 2023.

Department of Health and Human Services. “ Historic 21.3 Million People Choose ACA Marketplace Coverage .” press release. 24 Jan 2024.

KFF. Mar ketplace Enrollment, 2014-2023 . accessed 24 Jan 2024.

Republican National Committee. “ Biden’s Capitulation To Crime. ” 18 Jan 2024.

Pope, Troy and De Alba, Simone. “‘ Grief is a mountain’ | Homicides in DC were up 36% in 2023 – the most in 20 years .” WUSA9. 2 Jan 2024.

Moore, Katie et al. “ Kansas City metro records 246 homicides in 2023. Here are the details of each killing .” Kansas City Star. 1 Jan 2024.

Royer, David. “ As U.S. crime trends down, murders rise in Memphis .” WREG. 29 Dec 2023.

Major Cities Chiefs Association. Violent Crime Survey — National Totals, January 1 to September 30, 2023, and 2022 . Accessed 22 Jan 2024.

Major Cities Chiefs Association. Violent Crime Survey — National Totals, January 1 to December 31, 2020, and 2019 . Accessed 22 Jan 2024.

Council on Criminal Justice. “ Crime Trends in U.S. Cities: Mid-Year 2023 .” Jul 2023.

Kiely, Eugene et al. “ Biden’s Numbers, October 2023 Update .” FactCheck.org. 20 Oct 2023.

Federal Bureau of Investigation. “ UCR Summary of Crime in the Nation, 2022 .” Accessed 22 Jan 2024.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection. Southwest Land Border Encounters . Accessed 22 Jan 2024.

Department of Justice. Executive Office for Immigration Review Adjudication Statistics — Asylum Decision Rates . Accessed 22 Jan 2024.

TRAC Immigration. “ Immigration Court Backlog Tops 3 Million; Each Judge Assigned 4,500 Cases. ” Syracuse University. 18 Dec 2023.

White House Website. “ Fact Sheet: President Biden Sends Immigration Bill to Congress as Part of His Commitment to Modernize our Immigration System .” 20 Jan 2021.

Brooks, Emily and Beitsch, Rebecca. “ GOP’s Mayorkas impeachment push races ahead of Biden probe .” The Hill. 22 Jan 2024.

United States Courts. Confirmation Listing, Judicial Confirmations for January 2023 , 117th Congress. Updated 1 Jan 2023.

United States Courts. Confirmation Listing, Judicial Confirmations, 118th Congress . updated 24 Jan 2024.

United States Courts. C urrent Judicial Vacancies, 118th Congress . updated 24 Jan 2024.

United States Courts. Confirmation Listing, Judicial Confirmations for January 2019, 115th Congress. updated 1 Jan 2019.

United States Courts. C onfirmation Listing, Judicial Confirmations for February 2020 , 116th Congress. updated 1 Feb 2020.

The State. “ Jacquelyn Austin confirmed by U.S. Senate. She will be SC’s newest federal judge .” 24 Jan 2024.

@JudiciaryDems. “ CONFIRMED: Cristal Brisco to the Northern District of Indiana .” X. 24 Jan 2024.

“ NSSF-Adjusted NICS Background Checks for December, Q4 and Annual 2023 .” Shooting Wire. 5 Jan 2024.

National Shooting Sports Foundation. “NSSF-Adjusted NICS – Historical Monthly Chart.” 17 Jan 2023.

U.S. Energy Information Administration. Short-Term Energy Outlook . 9 Jan 2024.

U.S. Energy Information Administration. U.S. Field Production of Crude Oil . Accessed 23 Jan 2024.

U.S. Energy Information Administration. U.S. Imports of Crude Oil . Accessed 23 Jan 2024.

U.S. Energy Information Administration. Monthly Energy Review. Table 11.1 Carbon Dioxide Emissions From Energy Consumption by Source . 21 Dec 2023.

U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis. U.S. Trade in Goods and Services, 1960-present . 9 Jan 2024, accessed 22 Jan 2024.

U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis. “ U.S. International Trade in Goods and Services, November 2023 .” 9 Jan 2024.

U.S. Department of Agriculture. Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. Persons, Households, Benefits, and Average Monthly Benefit per Person & Household . 12 Jan 2024.

U.S. Department of Treasury. Debt to the Penny . Accessed 23 Jan 2024.

Congressional Budget Office. “ Monthly Budget Review: December 2023 .” 9 Jan 2024.

U.S. Department of Treasury. “Joint Statement of Janet L. Yellen, Secretary of the Treasury, and Shalanda D. Young, Director of the Office of Management and Budget, on Budget Results for Fiscal Year 2023 .” Press release. 20 Oct 2023.

S&P Global. “ Dow Jones Industrial Average .” Accessed 24 Jan 2024.

S&P Global. “ S&P 500 .” Accessed 24 Jan 2024.

Yahoo! Finance. “ NASDAQ Composite .” Accessed 24 Jan 2024.

Yahoo! Finance. “ Dow Jones Industrial Average .” Accessed 24 Jan 2024.

Yahoo! Finance. “ S&P 500 .” Accessed 24 Jan 2024.

Banerji, Gunjan. “ Dow Climbs Above 38000 to a Record; S&P 500 Reaches High .” Wall Street Journal. 22 Jan 2024.

“ Stocks close out 2023 with a 24% gain, buoyed by a resilient economy .” CBS News. 29 Dec 2023.

Randewich, Noel and Johann M. Cherian. “ S&P 500 ekes out another record high as Netflix and chipmakers leap .” Reuters. 24 Jan 2024.

clock This article was published more than 3 years ago

Biden administration moves toward making the pandemic work-from-home experiment permanent for many federal workers

As the Biden administration contemplates how to return the massive federal workforce to the office, government officials are moving to make a pandemic experiment permanent by allowing more employees than ever to work from home — a sweeping cultural change that would have been unthinkable a year ago.

The shift across the government, whose details are still being finalized, comes after the risk-averse federal bureaucracy had fallen behind private companies when it came to embracing telework — a posture driven by a perception that employees would slack off unless they were tethered to their office cubicles. That position hardened during the Trump administration, which dialed back work-from-home programs that had slowly expanded during the Obama era.

But the coronavirus crisis — and a new president eager to rebuild the trust of federal workers who had been attacked by former president Donald Trump as “the swamp” — has convinced the country’s largest employer that in many departments, employees can serve the public just as well from home, officials said.

Notice of the change is expected in June, when the administration is set to release long-awaited guidance to agencies about when and how many federal employees can return to the office — likely in hybrid workplaces that combine in-person and at-home options, according to officials and memos obtained by The Washington Post. The bulletin is expected to address remote work policies in the immediate and long term.

“We anticipate this guidance will leave room for decision-making at departments and agencies, to provide maximum flexibility for defining work requirements to meet mission and workforce needs,” said a senior administration official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because plans have not yet been finalized.

Some agencies have already made it clear they intend to give both current staff and new hires the option to continue to work away from the office.

Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack announced at his first town hall with employees in March that the department will allow telework as much as four days a week, expanded use of virtual and remote duty stations and more flexible schedules in its post-pandemic workplace. The department had been the first under Trump to slash what had been a robust telework program established during President Barack Obama’s second term.

“This will allow us to recruit and retain the absolute best talent, which will make USDA an employer of choice,” spokesman Matt Herrick said. Requests for continued telework are the “number one question employees ask,” he said.

The federal government puts out a ‘help wanted’ notice as Biden seeks to undo Trump cuts

How much other federal employees will be able to work from home will be up to individual agencies and is likely to vary widely depending on employee needs, manager preferences and the department’s mission, officials said. Many jobs — such as screening air travelers, building sorties for bombers and serving veterans in hospitals — do not lend themselves to remote work.

Still, a broader endorsement of a work-from-home culture by the Biden administration would have far-reaching implications for the 2.1 million federal employees around the country, as well as the vast federal contracting workforce, which could follow suit.

Like private-sector employees, federal workers had to quickly adjust to makeshift home offices during the public health crisis. Agencies scrambled to get equipment to staff members who had never worked outside the office — including, for example, customer service agents at the Internal Revenue Service and Social Security Administration, and employees who process benefit claims at the Department of Veterans Affairs.

The share of the workforce teleworking every day rose from 3 percent before the pandemic to 59 percent at its peak last year, according to a recently released survey of federal workers.

The move proved highly popular. Employees gave the flexibility high marks in the workforce survey, and many managers concluded that productivity didn’t suffer.

“I’m old school, and I’m still prejudiced against it, but I’ve evolved,” said Ann Stefanek, who supervises a team of 14 public affairs officers at the Pentagon for the Air Force. “I have some really good people who have busted their butts in the pandemic. If they tell me they need to work from home one day a week, I should listen to that.”

Facing competition for new talent from private companies that are collapsing bricks-and-mortar operations in favor of virtual offices, the Biden administration is encouraging agencies to imagine their post-pandemic workplaces and who will occupy them.

Managers are surveying their employees for their preferences. Among the possibilities: Opening job vacancies to applicants living anywhere in the country, who might work and even manage staffs thousands of miles away from their home offices in Washington.

“Collectively, the federal government has an opportunity for a ‘leap frog’ moment to shape the future of work,” Susan Gough, a spokeswoman for the Defense Department, the largest federal agency, said in an email.

Before the pandemic, about 11 percent of civilian and active-duty Pentagon employees did some of their jobs from home, a share that rose to 75 percent at one point last year, Gough said.

“The cultural barriers to telework have essentially collapsed [with the pandemic],” said Rep. Gerald E. Connolly (D), whose Northern Virginia district includes tens of thousands of federal employees and contractors. “The younger generation demands it.”

Still, a permanent shift away from the office or to a long-distance location poses some singular challenges for the federal government, experts on the federal workforce say.

The federal real estate footprint, reduced under the Obama and Trump administrations to save money, could continue to shrink . Agencies will also have to wrestle with how to track performance, whether to continue paying premiums for those living in expensive cities and how to be fair to those working in jobs that do not qualify for remote work.

Trump administration wants hundreds of thousands of federal workers to be ready to telework full time

Higher-paid employees in policy, regulatory, research and other roles have traditionally enjoyed more telework privileges than lower-paid ones whose government jobs often require face-to-face interaction. And with the government offering a far more diverse set of occupations than most private companies, a push for a permanent shift could raise sensitive issues.

“It’s going to give some employees a sense that there are haves and have-nots,” said Jeff Neal, a former personnel chief at the Department of Homeland Security and founder of the blog ChiefHRO.com.

“Someone commuting to an aircraft plant will think, ‘You get to sit home in your bunny slippers working at your computer, while I’m stuck in traffic on my commute,’ ” Neal said.

Dave Cann, director of organizing for the American Federation of Government Employees, the largest union representing federal workers, said there is an openness to negotiating conditions such as equipment and supplies, the number of telework days allowed and notice of home visits from managers.

“These are not the things that would be obstacles,” he said. “The union is a willing partner.”

The long-term changes are being contemplated even as federal employees wait to hear what immediately awaits them in the workplace.

The Biden administration in January established a maximum telework policy for federal offices — with the exception of jobs that cannot be done remotely — with no more than 25 percent capacity. The White House does not plan to bring back a full complement of staff until July.

The cautious approach has led to sharp criticism from members of Congress, who say the public still faces indefensible delays to face-to-face service at the IRS, the Social Security Administration and other agencies.

“It is time to begin transitioning to the workplace,” Rep. Jody Hice (R-Ga.), the top Republican on the House Oversight and Reform subcommittee on government operations, wrote last week to the government’s acting personnel chief.

Pointing to rising vaccination rates, declining covid-19 cases and newly optional mask policies in federal buildings, Hice wrote that “prolonging arrangements taken in an exigent situation is not a permanent solution.” He cited other “serious concerns” about the push for fully remote workplaces that don’t have daily direct contact with the public.

The pressure to see federal employees back in the office underscores the limitations of the rapid shift home forced by the pandemic.

As remote work rises at U.S. companies, Trump is calling federal employees back to the office

Some federal workers who now work remotely cannot fully perform their duties, some lawmakers have complained — saying their constituents still cannot get through to a live IRS representative on the phone because a limited number of employees are reporting to the office. The volume of calls has exploded and the phone staff is also opening huge piles of mail from taxpayers that accumulated when the agency was closed.

“My offices are open so they can serve our constituents,” said Rep. Michael Waltz (R-Fla.), “but my constituents are calling the IRS and they can’t get anyone on the phone in the name of the pandemic.” He has asked the Biden administration to explain why federal offices in states with low transmission rates remain closed.

“Our state agencies are open,” Waltz said. “Our schools are open. We’re asking federal agencies, ‘Serve the folks you’re supposed to serve.’ ”

The White House said that while federal offices are limited to 25 percent occupancy, agencies can be granted exceptions for mission-critical activities.

Mark Hinkle, a Social Security Administration spokesman, said in an email that the agency is “carefully and incrementally increasing the number of employees working in our local field offices” to help whittle down workloads and is beginning to increase in-office appointments.

There’s also bipartisan concern about thin in-person staffing levels at the National Personnel Records Center in St. Louis, an arm of the National Archives that provides veterans with vital paper records they need to obtain benefits, access to health care and burials at veterans cemeteries.

Pandemic staff absences have created a backlog of close to half a million service requests that must be processed by hand.

“This staff should be pushed to the front of the line [for vaccinations] and sent back to work,” said Rep. Mike Bost (Ill.), the top Republican on the House Committee on Veterans’ Affairs, who is part of a bipartisan group of lawmakers pressing the National Archives for answers. “What is the hold up?”

John Valceanu, a National Archives spokesman, said the records center is following federal guidelines on in-person work and has already recalled more than half its staff to the office.

The center is processing more than 10,000 requests a week from the public and another 7,000 from VA and other agencies within two or three work days, he said.

Despite the challenges, a broad rethinking of the federal workplace to include remote and virtual options brings big positives, economists and personnel experts say, by appealing to younger workers in particular and helping employers expand their talent pool.

“Telework leads to better hiring, because there are positions that are tied to geography unnecessarily,” said Chad Hooper, national president of the Professional Managers Association, which represents thousands of IRS managers and advises the agency on operations and policy.

“There are support and operations roles that don’t impact the public,” Hooper said. “We want the best candidates to fill those roles.”

Other proponents say a more distributed workforce outside Washington could satisfy skeptical conservatives, many of whom supported the move of the Interior Department’s Bureau of Land Management and two economic research offices at the Agriculture Department out of Washington in the Trump administration.

“It means your job no longer has to be in D.C.,” said Adam Ozimek, chief economist at Upwork, an online site for hiring freelancers and a leading voice on remote work. “Spreading people out will make federal employees accessible to everyone.”

Biden: 'It's time for Americans to get back to work and fill our great downtowns again' instead of working from home

President Joe Biden briefly addressed working from home in his State of the Union address Tuesday.
Biden urged Americans to get back to the office and "fill our great downtowns again."
Other prominent Democratic politicians have also come out against indefinite remote work.

President Joe Biden encouraged American workers to return to the office in his State of the Union Address Tuesday night.

At this point in the pandemic, 15.4% of Americans aged 16 and older worked from home at some point in January 2022, according to the latest data from Bureau of Labor Statistics . That's down from roughly 23% in February 2021 .

"We can end the shutdown of schools and businesses," Biden said. "We have the tools we need." "It's time for Americans to get back to work and fill our great downtowns again," he continued. "People working from home can feel safe to begin to return to the office."

Watch: Highlights from the final presidential debate between Trump and Joe Biden

Main content

New Hampshire
North Carolina
Pennsylvania
West Virginia
Online hoaxes
Coronavirus
Health Care
Immigration
Environment
Foreign Policy
Kamala Harris
Donald Trump
Mitch McConnell
Hakeem Jeffries
Ron DeSantis
Tucker Carlson
Sean Hannity
Rachel Maddow
PolitiFact Videos
2024 Elections
Mostly True
Mostly False
Pants on Fire
Biden Promise Tracker
Trump-O-Meter
Latest Promises
Our Process
Who pays for PolitiFact?
Advertise with Us
Suggest a Fact-check
Corrections and Updates
Newsletters

Get PolitiFact in your inbox.

Weekly Email Newsletter
Daily Email Newsletter

Candidate Biography

President Joe Biden speaks at North Carolina A&T State University in Greensboro, N.C., on April 14, 2022. (AP)

Fact-checking Joe Biden on being a full professor for four years

If your time is short.

• Biden served as Benjamin Franklin Presidential Professor of the Practice at the University of Pennsylvania between his tenure as vice president and the start of his presidential campaign.

• However, the duration of his position was closer to two years than it was to four, since he was on unpaid leave while running for president.

• Biden’s duties did not include the same degree of teaching, research and administrative responsibilities that some may associate with the term "full professor."

During a visit to North Carolina A&T State University in Greensboro, N.C., President Joe Biden broke the ice with his audience by saying he shared some common ground with members of the university community.

"I've been to a lot of university campuses," Biden said April 14. "Matter of fact, for four years, I was a full professor at the University of Pennsylvania. And this is really an impressive place with a lot of impressive students."

A reader asked us to fact-check whether Biden really was a full professor for four years.

Biden served as Benjamin Franklin Presidential Professor of the Practice at the University of Pennsylvania between his tenure as vice president and the start of his presidential campaign. However, the duration of the position was closer to two years than four, since he was on leave while running for president. Also, his duties might not conform to the full range of activities that the public might associate with the term "full professor," including teaching semester-long classes, conducting independent research, and handling administrative responsibilities.

The White House did not respond to requests for comment.

According to the university’s faculty handbook , the rank of practice professor "is confined to a small number of untenured full-time professorships" in certain schools at Penn that permit the addition to the faculty of "distinguished, highly experienced individuals who have achieved success in their fields and whose skills and knowledge are essential to the educational process at both the undergraduate and graduate levels."

The handbook describes the "primary" activity of a practice professor as teaching, though they may also "supervise independent studies and internships, serve on committees and attend school faculty meetings."

According to the tax forms he has released, Biden received more than $900,000 from the university for holding the position between 2017 and 2019. His post "involved no regular classes and around a dozen public appearances on campus, mostly in big, ticketed events," the Philadelphia Inquirer reported .

Specifically, the Inquirer reported, Biden’s appearances included "three Q-and-As with Penn president Amy Gutmann, panel discussions on immigration and cancer, a talk about his book, a lecture to a Wharton class, and public conversations with former Mexico President Felipe Calderon and former United Kingdom Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg, according to a tally by the student newspaper, the Daily Pennsylvanian."

As part of the post, Biden also established the Penn Biden Center for Diplomacy and Global Engagement in Washington for the university. Biden’s professorship included affiliations with the Annenberg School for Communication, Penn’s School of Arts and Sciences, and the Wharton School.

Featured Fact-check

However, shortly after Biden’s appointment was announced in 2017, Kate Bedingfield, a Biden spokesperson, told The Daily Pennsylvanian that Biden would not be teaching regular classes.

Joe Biden at a forum on the opioid epidemic at the University of Pennsylvania on April 11, 2019. (AP)

Biden was the first individual to hold the Franklin professorship, and his tenure overlapped with the second holder: former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, a Republican. Biden and Bush held at least two joint events on campus, the Inquirer reported.

Biden went on an unpaid leave of absence in April 2019 , when he became a presidential candidate, meaning that his time as an active holder of the professorship was about two years, not four as Biden said in his North Carolina speech.

PolitiFact asked the University of Pennsylvania about the differences between Biden’s position and those of a rank-and-file full professor.

"Penn has many different models of professorships," Ron Ozio, the university’s director of media relations, told PolitiFact. "Not all are tenure-track and involve teaching regular classes. Some are clinicians, some are researchers, and others are professors of the practice, the category that applied to President Biden."

Ozio added that the university was satisfied with Biden’s tenure.

Biden was "phenomenally successful," Ozio said. "He helped to expand the university’s global outreach, while sharing his wisdom and insights with thousands of Penn students through University-wide events, talks and classroom visits."

Biden said, "For four years, I was a full professor at the University of Pennsylvania."

Biden served as a "professor of the practice" at the University of Pennsylvania. However, the duration of his position was closer to two years, since he was on unpaid leave while running for president. His duties of his particular professorship did not include the same degree of teaching, research, and administrative responsibilities that some would associate with someone holding a position as "full professor."

We rate the statement Half True.

Read About Our Process

The Principles of the Truth-O-Meter

Our Sources

White House, remarks by Joe Biden at North Carolina A&T State University, April 14, 2022

University of Pennsylvania, faculty handbook , accessed April 22, 2022

University of Pennsylvania, " A Message to the Penn Community Regarding Vice President Joe Biden ," April 30, 2019

University of Pennsylvania, Joe Biden biography , accessed April 21, 2022

University of Pennsylvania, Jeb Bush biography , accessed April 21, 2022

Philadelphia Inquirer, " Penn Has Paid Joe Biden More than $900K since He Left the White House. What Did He Do to Earn the Money? " July 12, 2019

Daily Pennsylvanian, " No One Is Really Sure What Joe Biden Will Be Doing at Penn ," Feb. 28, 2017

Daily Pennsylvanian, " Joe Biden Came to Penn for the Fourth Time in 2018. Here’s His Role on Campus, Explained ," Dec. 11, 2017

Daily Pennsylvanian, " Jeb Bush just became Penn’s second presidential professor of practice. Here’s what that means ," Sept. 20, 2018

Daily Pennsylvanian, " Biden’s Claim of Being a "teacher" at Penn Drew Scrutiny. Here’s What His Role Really Was ," April 17, 2020

Daily Pennsylvanian, " Photo Essay: A look back at Joe Biden’s visits to Penn since becoming a professor ," Feb. 20, 2019

Tax Notes, presidential tax returns archive , accessed April 21, 2022

Snopes.com, " Was Biden a ‘Full Professor’ at the University of Pennsylvania? " April 15, 2022

Email interview with Kelly Benjamin, spokesperson for the American Association of University Professors, April 19, 2022

Email interview with Ron Ozio, director of media relations for the University of Pennsylvania, April 19, 2022

Browse the Truth-O-Meter

More by louis jacobson.

Support independent fact-checking. Become a member!

Share full article

Supported by

Biden’s Cabinet and Senior Advisers

President Biden’s nominees are slowly making their way through Senate confirmation.

By Zach Montague

WASHINGTON — President Biden has chosen a team of cabinet members and senior advisers who bring government experience and expertise in their fields to confront four fronts of challenges: getting control of Covid-19, systemic racism, the economy and climate change.

Victories for Democrats in twin runoff races in Georgia in early January handed Mr. Biden’s party control of the Senate, and with it, the power to choose from a larger menu of potential executive department heads, with minimal need to win Republican approval. But even with a Democratic majority in the Senate, Mr. Biden has turned to a predominately established and moderate circle of advisers — one that is ethnically diverse, yet for the most part ideologically uniform.

Mr. Biden has now filled out his cabinet. Here are his picks:

Attorney General

Merrick B. Garland

Almost five years after his nomination to the Supreme Court was blocked by Senate Republicans in March 2016, Judge Merrick B. Garland has returned to the political stage as Mr. Biden’s pick to be the country’s chief law enforcement officer and oversee the Justice Department.

Judge Garland has extensive experience working for the department he has been selected to lead, having served under three former presidents — Jimmy Carter, George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton. He also approaches the role with considerable knowledge of the judicial system informed by his work as a former clerk for Justice William J. Brennan Jr. on the Supreme Court and now on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, where he was chief judge from 2013 to 2020.

In choosing Judge Garland, Mr. Biden appears keen on restoring the Justice Department’s independence, particularly after the departments’ lawyers and former attorneys general repeatedly became ensnared in politicized investigations under Mr. Trump.

Several prominent Republicans including Senators Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and Mitch McConnell of Kentucky have expressed support for Judge Garland’s nomination, bolstering Mr. Biden’s hopes that his reputation and background leave him uniquely qualified to steer the department away from partisan politics.

Read more: Judge Garland brings a steady hand to a department overcome by partisan rancor.

Secretary of State

Antony J. Blinken

In tapping Antony Blinken to serve as secretary of state, Mr. Biden appears determined to rebuild relationships with foreign leaders and international organizations that have atrophied under the isolationist policies that defined former President Trump’s “America First” agenda.

Mr. Blinken is taking charge of a State Department that has shrunk in size and stature under Mr. Trump, as staff reductions and resignations have thinned its ranks.

Mr. Blinken, 58, is well versed in the mechanisms of diplomacy. He worked for the department under two previous administrations, including as deputy secretary of state under President Barack Obama.

In Mr. Blinken, Mr. Biden hopes to install a measured and well-credentialed negotiator who can represent the United States internationally as well as restore a sense of purpose within the State Department.

Read more: Antony Blinken is looking to reverse the Trump administration’s confrontational approach to diplomacy.

Treasury Secretary

Janet L. Yellen

Looking for a trusted economist to lead the country’s economy out of a pandemic-driven downturn, Mr. Biden has selected Janet Yellen, the former chair of the Federal Reserve.

Ms. Yellen is the first woman to lead the Treasury in its 231-year history.

During her stint as Fed chair from 2014 to 2018, Ms. Yellen oversaw a record-long economic expansion that would go on to drive unemployment down to its lowest rate in 50 years and that helped produce a thriving economy that was upended by the coronavirus pandemic.

In selecting Ms. Yellen, Mr. Biden appeared to have opted for a safe and proven name. She easily won confirmation by a vote of 84 to 15. Other economists proposed by the Democratic Party’s progressive wing were likely to have been less acceptable to Republicans in the Senate.

Read more: Ms. Yellen’s first challenge will be to help steer Mr. Biden’s $1.9 trillion stimulus package through Congress.

Secretary of Defense

Lloyd J. Austin III

Retired Gen. Lloyd J. Austin III, the former commander of the American military effort in Iraq, was confirmed by the Senate during Mr. Biden’s first days in office.

General Austin, 67, was for years a formidable figure at the Pentagon and the only African-American to have headed U.S. Central Command, but he is less known for his political instincts and has shown little interest in the public-facing parts of the job. He made history as the first African-American to lead the Defense Department.

The retired general was approved overwhelmingly, after Congress granted him a waiver from a law restricting those who are retired from military service fewer than seven years from leading the Pentagon.

Read more: General Austin is confirmed by the Senate.

Secretary of the Interior

Deb Haaland

In emphasizing his intent to redirect the country’s course on environmental policy, Mr. Biden has picked Representative Deb Haaland, Democrat of New Mexico, to oversee the Interior Department.

Ms. Haaland, who was confirmed by a 51-40 vote in the Senate, is the first Native American appointed to a cabinet secretary position, a barrier she broke after she and Sharice Davids of Kansas became the first two Native American women elected to Congress in 2018.

Ms. Haaland’s heritage as a 35th-generation New Mexican and a member of the Laguna Pueblo makes her nomination especially meaningful given the agency’s role in providing services to 1.9 million Indigenous people and helping maintain the government’s relationship with 574 federally recognized tribes. Both the Bureau of Indian Affairs and the Bureau of Indian Education operate within the department.

However, Ms. Haaland will also be tasked with overseeing elements of a sweeping and ambitious environmental agenda alongside several of Mr. Biden’s top climate aides such as Gina McCarthy and John Kerry.

As a candidate, Mr. Biden promised to “ transition away from the oil industry ,” a move he has said will involve banning new oil and gas permits on the public lands and waters that Ms. Haaland would oversee. She will also be at the forefront of Mr. Biden’s efforts to ramp up protection of vast tracts of the 500 million acres of federal land that the Trump administration has opened up to mining, logging and construction.

Ms. Haaland served on the House Natural Resources Committee, which oversees the Interior Department. That experience could help inform her vision for the department.

Read more: A historic choice would place a Native American in charge of the agency that aids Indigenous communities.

Secretary of Agriculture

Tom Vilsack

Tom Vilsack, who was the secretary of agriculture for eight years under Mr. Obama, was confirmed by the Senate to lead the department again.

Mr. Vilsack, 70, was a traditional choice to lead the agency — he is a former governor of Iowa, an important rural farming state — and was approved overwhelmingly by a vote of 92 to 7.

“It’s not lost on me, ironically, that this is Groundhog’s Day, and I realize that I’m back again,” Mr. Vilsack said during his confirmation hearing. “But I also realize that this is a fundamentally different time and I am a different person, and it is a different department.”

Mr. Biden’s pick for the agency was a source of friction with prominent Black leaders, who had urged the president to instead nominate Marcia L. Fudge, now the nominee for housing secretary , and called to shift the agency’s focus away from farming and toward hunger.

In the end, Mr. Biden struck a compromise: tapping a safe, white candidate to champion at least some of the hunger policies aimed at aiding communities of color.

“I think we face a ‘why not’ moment with reference to food security that plagues millions,” Mr. Vilsack said at his confirmation hearing. “A ‘why not’ moment on nutrition and security that causes millions of Americans, especially people of color, to cope with obesity and diabetes and other chronic diseases.”

Read more: Mr. Vilsack is the seventh cabinet member Mr. Biden has chosen.

special presidential envoy for climate

John F. Kerry

Emphasizing his intent to make addressing the global threat posed by climate change a pillar of his policy agenda, Mr. Biden selected John Kerry, the former secretary of state, to take up a newly created cabinet-level position as his “climate czar.”

Mr. Kerry’s job also includes a seat on the National Security Council. It is the first time that an adviser wholly dedicated to the issue of climate change will join the forum, placing him among other top advisers in the national security and foreign policy arena.

Mr. Kerry’s approach to the role is likely to be heavily informed by his experience working with other countries on agreements to set meaningful benchmarks on carbon emissions and encourage sustainable growth. While secretary of state under Mr. Obama, Mr. Kerry was a chief negotiator for the United States on the Paris Agreement on climate change, which Mr. Biden recommitted the nation to on his first day in office.

Read more: Mr. Kerry is charged with making climate change “ an essential element of U.S. foreign policy and national security.”

Secretary of Commerce

Gina Raimondo

Mr. Biden selected Gina Raimondo, the governor of Rhode Island, to run the Commerce Department, a role atop what is often described informally as the country’s data agency.

Before being elected governor in 2015, Ms. Raimondo served as general treasurer of Rhode Island and founded a joint venture firm that helped finance a number of start-ups. She is viewed by many as a traditional choice for the post, in which she will oversee relations with businesses as well as technology regulation, weather monitoring and economic data collection.

Ms. Raimondo, who was confirmed on a vote of 84 to 15, is immediately faced with completing the collection and analysis of the country’s 2020 census data, which was not completed by the end of Mr. Trump’s term.

While Ms. Raimondo has been hailed for her business acumen, some progressive groups have resisted her nomination, pushing for candidates who might be more inclined to pursue goals such as decreasing gerrymandering through census changes and regulating prescription drug costs.

Read more: Ms. Raimondo’s moderate credentials are another disappointment for progressives.

Secretary of Labor

Martin J. Walsh

Facing a backsliding economy in which millions of workers have suffered from anemic pandemic relief and persistent unemployment, Mr. Biden has selected the mayor of Boston, Martin Walsh, to help alleviate the plight facing workers as head of the Labor Department.

Mr. Walsh has been mayor since 2013, ascending to the office with strong support from organized labor. Mr. Walsh himself has been a union member since early adulthood, rising through the ranks to serve as president of Laborers Local 223 in South Boston, and previously led Boston’s Building and Construction Trades Council from 2011 to 2013. He was a state representative in Massachusetts for 17 years.

If confirmed by the Senate, Mr. Walsh would be expected to focus on policies promoting higher wages and protections for workers, as well as revitalizing the country’s manufacturing sector, as Mr. Biden promised throughout his campaign.

Mr. Walsh would also oversee the resuscitation of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, which has been criticized for poor workplace oversight during the pandemic when meatpacking plants experienced virus outbreaks .

Read more: Mr. Walsh comes to the job with longstanding connections to the labor movement .

Secretary of Health and Human Services

Xavier Becerra

Xavier Becerra , Mr. Biden’s surprise pick to lead the Department of Health and Human Services, is an outspoken advocate of improved health care access and has led legal efforts on health care as the attorney general of California.

Mr. Becerra is a Democratic former congressman and is the first Latino to serve as health secretary after the Senate confirmed him on a vote of 50 to 49 . He faces a daunting task in tackling the coronavirus pandemic, which has taken a particularly devastating toll on people of color .

As California’s attorney general, Mr. Becerra filed more than a dozen lawsuits about health care alone, including one in which California led 20 states and the District of Columbia in a campaign to protect the Affordable Care Act from being dismantled by his Republican counterparts.

He is also expected to bring to the forefront the unequal effect that environmental damage has had on the health of Americans in vulnerable communities.

Read more: Some medical experts are unhappy with Mr. Becerra’s selection .

National Security Adviser

Jake Sullivan

Mr. Biden picked Jake Sullivan to advise him on matters of national security. Mr. Sullivan has been hailed in Washington as a gifted legal mind, one who has a long history of working with Mr. Biden. He does not need to be confirmed by the Senate for this position.

Mr. Sullivan’s list of accomplishments is extensive. A Rhodes scholar and graduate of Yale Law School, Mr. Sullivan has built a lengthy résumé including a clerkship for Justice Stephen G. Breyer and work as chief counsel to Senator Amy Klobuchar, Democrat of Minnesota. Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, whom he worked for as the department’s head of policy planning, has described him as a “once-in-a-generation talent.”

Mr. Sullivan has also worked closely with other members of Mr. Biden’s planned cabinet, succeeding Mr. Blinken as Mr. Biden’s national security adviser in 2013, when he was vice president. Mr. Sullivan and Mr. Blinken maintain a close friendship and a shared philosophy about the United States’ role in the world that is expected to shape Mr. Biden’s approach in international affairs.

Read more: Mr. Biden picks a close confidant to head national security.

U.N. Ambassador

Linda Thomas-Greenfield

The Senate confirmation of Linda Thomas-Greenfield, to become the United States ambassador to the United Nations, comes as President Biden’s administration seeks to become a more active force in the global body.

“Diplomacy is back,” said Ms. Thomas-Greenfield, when Mr. Biden announced her nomination in November, echoing a theme of Mr. Biden’s in talks with other world leaders. “Multilateralism is back. Diplomacy is back.”

Mr. Biden has restored the post of U.N. ambassador to cabinet-level status after Mr. Trump downgraded it, giving Ms. Thomas-Greenfield a seat on his National Security Council. As America’s top representative to the United Nations, Ms. Thomas-Greenfield, 68, said she will work to restore alliances and re-engage in multilateral efforts to address global problems like the coronavirus pandemic.

Ms. Thomas-Greenfield has more than 35 years of experience in the Foreign Service, having worked as the U.S. ambassador to Liberia and having served in posts in Switzerland, Pakistan, Kenya, Gambia, Nigeria and Jamaica.

She has also worked in the private sector, as a senior vice president at the Albright Stonebridge Group, the consulting firm founded by former Secretary of State Madeleine K. Albright, overseeing the firm’s Africa practice.

Read more: After the Trump administration pushed for American retreat from the United Nations, Ms. Thomas-Greenfield has said she will set about re-engagement .

U.S. Trade Representative

Katherine Tai

Mr. Biden has turned to Katherine Tai to be the country’s trade representative, a role that took on greater importance under the previous administration, which used the post to impose substantial tariffs against foreign countries and negotiate a series of trade deals, both small and large.

Ms. Tai has served as the chief trade lawyer in the House and has extensive experience with China. She also played a key role in hammering out the new North American Free Trade Agreement. Her nomination was approved by a vote of 98 to 0 , making her the first member of President Biden’s cabinet to be confirmed with no opposing votes.

In this cabinet-level role that carries the rank of ambassador, Ms. Tai will be responsible for rebuilding trade relationships and helping to decide whether to continue collecting tariffs on Chinese goods.

Ms. Tai, who is Asian-American, is also the first woman of color to be the U.S. trade representative.

Read more: Ms. Tai’s tasks would most likely include fighting climate change and encouraging domestic investment.

Director of the White House Domestic Policy Council

Mr. Biden has chosen Susan Rice, a former national security adviser to Mr. Obama, to be the director of his Domestic Policy Council. In this role, Ms. Rice will oversee a large part of the president’s agenda, including the administration’s response to the pandemic. The position does not require Senate confirmation.

At one point, Ms. Rice was on Mr. Biden’s short list to be vice president. She has been a favorite target of Republicans, who criticized her role in responding to the 2012 terrorist attack on the American mission in Benghazi, Libya. The attack left four Americans dead and prompted months of Republican-led congressional hearings.

Ms. Rice brings years of experience to the job, having served as an assistant secretary of state and ambassador to the United Nations. She is widely known for coordinating Mr. Obama’s foreign policy portfolio.

She was a contributing opinion writer for The New York Times for three years; her last column was published on Dec. 1.

Read more: Ms. Rice, a lifelong national security professional, is being placed in a top domestic policy job .

Secretary of Veterans Affairs

Denis McDonough

Mr. Biden has selected Denis McDonough to lead the Department of Veterans Affairs, the agency that runs the largest health care system in the country and has a history of career-ending scandals.

Mr. McDonough assumes leadership at a tenuous time. Thousands of veterans and more than 100 V.A. employees have died from the coronavirus, and the department fell behind on thousands of appointments during the most acute phase of the pandemic.

The V.A.’s “capabilities have not always risen to the needs of our veterans,” Mr. McDonough said at his confirmation hearing in January. “I promise to fight every single day to ensure that our veterans have the access to the world-class, compassionate care they have earned.”

While Mr. McDonough is only the department’s second nonveteran leader since it became a cabinet position in 1989, he has worked on behalf of military families and with Robert A. McDonald, the former veterans affairs secretary, on improving care for veterans after devastating reports of long waits to see doctors. He has also made frequent trips to meet with members of the military.

During the Obama administration, Mr. McDonough served as the president’s deputy national security adviser and later his chief of staff, roles in which he worked closely with Mr. Biden.

Read more: Mr. McDonough enjoyed bipartisan praise during his confirmation hearing.

Director of National Intelligence

Avril D. Haines

Avril Haines was the first member of Mr. Biden’s cabinet to win Senate confirmation and she is the first woman to serve in the top intelligence role. She has strong ties to the intelligence community after serving in both the Obama and George W. Bush administrations.

A trained physicist, Ms. Haines also helped oversee a number of covert programs at the National Security Council beginning in 2010 and then as the deputy director of the Central Intelligence Agency from 2013 to 2015. They included the controversial targeted killing program involving precision drone strikes, some of which killed civilians.

Read more: The Senate confirmed Avril Haines as intelligence director, Biden’s first and only Cabinet official to be approved on Day 1.

SECRETARY OF Homeland Security

Alejandro N. Mayorkas

After four years of immigration policy narrowly tailored to President Donald J. Trump’s personal whims, Mr. Biden tapped Alejandro Mayorkas, a lawyer and former deputy homeland security secretary, to reorient the Department of Homeland Security.

Mr. Mayorkas is charged with overseeing the rollback of the Trump administration’s more punitive immigration policies in his new role. He approaches that task as the first immigrant to hold the position, as well as the first Latino.

Mr. Mayorkas faces the challenge of rebuilding an agency that suffered from unfilled vacancies and a chain of interim leaders in recent years. It has also been embroiled in scandal over, among other issues, the Trump administration’s family separation policy .

Read more: Mr. Mayorkas will lead a task force aimed at reuniting families separated at the border.

Secretary of Housing and Urban Development

Marcia L. Fudge

Mr. Biden selected Representative Marcia L. Fudge, Democrat of Ohio, to serve as the secretary of housing and urban development.

The decision has the potential to disappoint allies of Ms. Fudge, 68, including members of the Congressional Black Caucus, of which she was a chairwoman. Allies of Ms. Fudge had urged Mr. Biden to put her at the Agriculture Department, where she had hoped to shift the agency’s focus away from farming and toward hunger, including in urban areas.

But after news of her selection leaked out, Ms. Fudge told reporters: “If I can help this president in any way possible, I am more than happy to do it. It’s a great honor and a privilege to be a part of something so good.”

Ms. Fudge has been in the House since 2008. In 2018, she mulled a challenge to Speaker Nancy Pelosi before dropping the idea and endorsing her. Now, Ms. Fudge will leave Congress to lead the nation’s sprawling housing agency instead.

Read more: Ms. Fudge had openly campaigned to become Mr. Biden’s agriculture secretary.

SECRETARY OF ENERGY

Jennifer M. Granholm

Jennifer Granholm, a former governor of Michigan, has been confirmed as the secretary of energy.

A longtime champion of renewable energy development, Ms. Granholm, 61, is widely credited with steering Michigan through the 2008 recession and working with the Obama administration on the subsequent bailout of the automobile industry, which included clean energy investments.

Though Ms. Granholm is not necessarily steeped in the core mission of the department — ensuring the safety of the country’s nuclear arsenal — her selection was seen as a nod to environmental groups. She is expected to lead with a vision for driving a clean-energy transformation.

After her second term as governor ended in 2011, Ms. Granholm became an advocate for renewable energy development, including giving a TED Talk on how investing in alternative energy resources can bolster state economies, something Mr. Biden has focused on in his coronavirus recovery plan.

Ms. Granholm, a longtime champion of renewable energy development, was confirmed by a vote of 64 to 35, with support from both Democrats and Republicans. She will be the second woman to lead the Department of Energy, after Hazel R. O’Leary, who served under President Bill Clinton.

Read more: Several people close to the transition said advisers had struggled over the pick to lead the Energy Department.

SECRETARY of Transportation

Pete Buttigieg

Hoping to cut through years of gridlock that have stalled bipartisan efforts to overhaul and repair the country’s infrastructure and transportation systems, Mr. Biden selected Pete Buttigieg, the former mayor of South Bend, Ind., to lead the Transportation Department.

The selection was immediately hailed as a major breakthrough by L.G.B.T. advocacy groups. Mr. Buttigieg is the first openly gay person to be confirmed as a cabinet secretary.

Taking advantage of the slimmest possible majority in the Senate, Mr. Biden may make an early priority of pushing through a major infrastructure bill that would create desperately needed jobs in an economy ravaged by the pandemic.

How much Mr. Buttigieg may be able to guide those plans is less certain.

Throughout his bid for the presidency in 2020, Mr. Buttigieg drew criticism for his relatively limited political credentials, running as a small-town mayor while losing some support over his handling of police brutality and other issues during his tenure. Mr. Biden selected him over other prospective candidates with more direct experience overseeing major urban transportation networks and public transit agencies.

However, in his time as mayor, Mr. Buttigieg notched noted wins on transportation policy , bringing to fruition an ambitious $25 million project aimed at revitalizing the downtown area of South Bend with thoughtfully placed traffic corridors, bike lanes and parking improvements.

The plan helped to significantly reshape the city’s core, leading to more than $100 million in private investment and a thriving downtown center.

Read more: Mr. Buttigieg takes charge as the county’s public transportation systems are reeling from the pandemic.

White House Climate Coordinator

Gina McCarthy

Gina McCarthy, the former administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency under Mr. Obama, is Mr. Biden’s senior White House adviser on climate change.

Ms. McCarthy is known as the architect of some of Mr. Obama’s most far-reaching regulations to limit greenhouse gas emissions, including the Clean Power Plan, which set the first national limits on carbon emissions from power plants.

As the senior White House adviser on climate change, Ms. McCarthy will coordinate domestic climate policy and help make good on Mr. Biden’s campaign promise of putting the United States on track to reach carbon neutrality before 2050.

Advocates for stronger action to fight climate change have lauded the choice. They have said Ms. McCarthy’s selection signals that the administration is prepared to bypass Congress and use executive authority to begin reducing greenhouse gases after the Trump administration’s efforts to repeal and weaken much of Ms. McCarthy’s work as the E.P.A. administrator.

Since January, Ms. McCarthy has served as the president of the Natural Resources Defense Council, an environmental group.

Read more: In the Biden administration, Ms. McCarthy’s role as climate adviser may have significantly more influence than before.

Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency

Michael S. Regan

Mr. Biden picked Michael Regan, the secretary of the North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality, to lead the Environmental Protection Agency.

A longtime air-quality specialist at the E.P.A. in both the Clinton and the George W. Bush administrations, Mr. Regan later worked for the Environmental Defense Fund, a nonprofit advocacy group. In 2017, Gov. Roy Cooper, a Democrat, tapped Mr. Regan to lead North Carolina’s environmental agency.

There he replaced Donald R. van der Vaart, a Trump administration ally who has questioned the established science of climate change. Mr. van der Vaart also fought Obama-era rules limiting greenhouse gas emissions from power plants and championed a pro-business agenda of deregulation.

Mr. Regan was confirmed by a vote of 66 to 34 , with all Democrats and 16 Republicans in the Senate voting in favor.

Supporters of Mr. Regan said he improved low morale and emphasized the role of science at the department. Several called it an obvious parallel to what he would be expected to do at the E.P.A., where Andrew Wheeler, Mr. Trump’s administrator and a former coal lobbyist, has discouraged the agency from working on climate change and independent auditors have identified a “ culture at the top ” of political interference in science.

The selection of Mr. Regan is in many ways a conventional choice. Democratic presidents have a history of elevating E.P.A. leaders from state environmental agencies. Ms. McCarthy and Lisa Jackson, who both ran the agency under Mr. Obama, had been the heads of state environmental agencies.

Mr. Regan, who is the first Black man to lead the agency, is expected to bring a strong focus on racial equity.

Read more: Mr. Regan will be on the front lines of the effort to undo one of Mr. Trump’s most sprawling transformations of the federal government.

Secretary of Education

Miguel A. Cardona

Dr. Miguel A. Cardona, a career educator who rose through the ranks of Connecticut’s school system, was confirmed as Education Secretary.

Since 2019, Dr. Cardona served as Connecticut’s first Latino commissioner of education after two decades of experience in public schools, including as a kindergarten teacher and a school principal.

He now leads a department responsible for bringing elementary, secondary and higher education systems back from the disruption caused by the coronavirus pandemic, which has widened the achievement gap between affluent students and poorer pupils.

In interviews, Dr. Cardona has emphasized his parents’ Puerto Rican roots and his upbringing in Connecticut’s public housing and education systems as experiences that have anchored his career.

“It’s not lost on me, the significance of being the grandson of a tobacco farmer who came here for a better life, who despite having a second-grade education was able to raise his family and create that upward mobility cycle,” he said in a profile in The Connecticut Mirror in 2019.

Read more: Dr. Cardona has emerged as an urgent voice pressing to reopen schools safely during the pandemic.

Aishvarya Kavi and Eileen Sullivan contributed reporting.

An earlier version of this article overstated the breakthroughs Miguel A. Cardona achieved as a top education official. He served as Connecticut’s first Latino commissioner of education; he would not be the first Latino to be confirmed as Secretary of Education.

How we handle corrections

Zach Montague is based in Washington, D.C. He covers breaking news and developments around the district. More about Zach Montague

Inside the Biden Administration

Here’s the latest news and analysis from washington..

Immigration: President Biden issued an executive order that prevents migrants from seeking asylum at the U.S.-Mexico border when crossings surge, a dramatic election-year move to ease pressure on the immigration system.

Israel and Ukraine: Biden has promised to support the two countries for as long as it takes. Both their wars appear to be at critical turning points .

Attacks on Justice Dept.: Attorney General Merrick Garland lashed out at House Republicans , accusing them of seeking to undermine the rule of law, peddling “conspiracy theories” and spreading falsehoods.

‘Corporate Offender’ Registry: The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau finalized a plan to create a public registry of nonbank businesses that have been penalized for violating consumer protection laws.

Live Nation: The Justice Department is suing Live Nation Entertainment , the owner of Ticketmaster, asking a court to break up the company over claims it illegally maintained a monopoly in the live entertainment industry.

Morning Rundown: Hunter Biden's wife confronts Trump ally, Boeing attempts space launch for a third time, and Covid fraud jurors dismissed after $120K bribery allegation

Biden announces sweeping vaccine mandates affecting millions of workers

WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden on Thursday issued two executive orders mandating vaccines for federal workers and contractors and announced new requirements for large employers and health care providers that he said would affect around 100 million workers, more than two-thirds of the U.S. workforce.

"We've been patient, but our patience is wearing thin," Biden said, making a direct appeal to the 80 million people who he said were still unvaccinated. "Your refusal has cost all of us."

Biden also announced that he asked the Department of Labor to issue an emergency rule requiring all employers with 100 or more employees to ensure their workforce is fully vaccinated or require any unvaccinated workers to produce a negative Covid test at least once a week. The requirement could carry a $14,000 fine per violation and would affect two-thirds of the country's workforce, a senior administration official said.

Employees working in health care facilities that receive Medicare or Medicaid reimbursement will also be required to be vaccinated, Biden said, a move that will impact 7 million workers at 50,000 health care providers.

As of July, 27 percent of the country's health care workers were unvaccinated , according to a study by the Covid States Project.

The administration, which shied away from mandates early in the summer, is now embracing them, as what Biden once billed as the “summer of freedom” ends with thousands of unvaccinated Americans dying from Covid-19 every week. Much of Biden’s wider agenda and political standing is seen as dependent on his ability to address the pandemic, with his approval numbers falling as new infections rise.

Thursday evening, the Republican National Committee announced that it would sue the Biden administration, calling the mandate "unconstitutional" and "authoritarian."

Biden had given federal workers the choice of undergoing regular testing instead of getting vaccinated, but that testing opt-out will no longer be an option.

"It's simple: If you want to work for the federal government, you must be vaccinated. If you want to do business with the government, you must vaccinate your workforce," the official said.

To make testing more accessible, Biden announced that Walmart, Amazon, and Kroger will start selling at-home rapid tests for no profit for the next three months, resulting in a 35 percent price cut by the end of the week. Medicaid will also cover at-home tests for free for beneficiaries, and the federal government will expand a free testing program to 10,000 pharmacies.

He also encouraged large entertainment venues, like sports arenas and concert halls, to require proof of vaccination in order to enter and said that Transportation Security Administration will double fines on travelers who refuse to wear a mask on airlines and other modes of transportation.

"If you break the rules, be prepared to pay," Biden said. "And by the way, show some respect."

To help address surging cases in schools that have resulted in hundreds of closures over the past month, the president called on all schools to set up regular testing and plans to make additional funding available for local school districts that have had their funding cut by state governments for implementing Covid safety measures, such as mask requirements.

Biden also announced that 30,000 Head Start teachers will be required to get vaccinated and called on governors to require vaccinations for teachers and school staff.

"Let me be blunt: My plan also takes on elected officials and states that are undermining you and these life saving actions," Biden said. "If these governors won't help us beat the pandemic, I will use my power as president to get them out of the way."

The Department of Education has launched investigations into whether mask mandates in five states discriminate against students with disabilities who are at heightened risk for severe illness from Covid by preventing them from accessing in-person education, the official said.

The CDC recommends testing be offered to students who have not been fully vaccinated when there is an elevated spread of the virus, and teachers and staff who have not been fully vaccinated should be screened regardless of the level of community transmission.

Biden’s Covid reset comes as the rapidly spreading delta variant threatens to stall the country’s economic rebound and derail efforts to return students to the classroom. Just weeks into the return to school tens of thousands of students and staff have had to isolate themselves following school outbreaks, and the administration attributed August’s disappointing jobs numbers to the variant as consumer confidence falls.

Biden cautioned Thursday that the country was in a "tough stretch" of the pandemic that could "last for a while" due to the delta variant and the large number of unvaccinated people who he said "can cause a lot of damage."

Biden’s approval rating for his handling of the coronavirus outbreak has steadily decreased over the summer, from 63 percent at the end of June to 53 percent this week, according to the FiveThirtyEight polling average. He’s also seen a drop in his wider approval rating, which slid 6 points since July to just 43 percent, in an NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist poll released last week.

Entering the summer, Biden promoted his success at getting Covid cases to the lowest level since the start of the pandemic and predicted 70 percent of adults would be vaccinated by Independence Day. White House officials said they hoped Biden’s pandemic response would restore Americans’ faith in government and make it easier to sell other aspects of his domestic agenda, like an ambitious infrastructure spending package.

“America is headed into the summer dramatically different from last year’s summer: a summer of freedom, a summer of joy, a summer of get-togethers and celebrations,” Biden predicted on June 2. “An all-American summer that this country deserves after a long, long, dark winter that we’ve all endured.”

The summer was indeed different, but not in the way Biden had anticipated. States such as Florida set records for the number of patients hospitalized with Covid, as new cases across the country went well above the numbers seen last summer due to the spread of the delta variant.

But at the same time, Americans followed through on Biden’s prediction of a return to celebrations and gatherings, something that now has public health officials fearing a new wave of infections following Labor Day weekend travel and get-togethers.

Across the country, states are seeing hospitals overwhelmed with Covid patients. In Idaho, which has some of the lowest vaccination rates in the country, officials said Tuesday they were allowing health care providers to begin rationing care to make scarce resources available to patients most likely to survive because of a severe shortage of staff, beds and equipment.

There has been some improvement in the pace of vaccinations, which started increasing again in recent weeks after leveling off in July. The U.S. passed the milestone this week of having 75 percent of adults at least practically vaccinated. The biggest gains have been among young adults and teens, which White House officials have attributed to vaccine mandates by colleges and employers along with increased fears from the delta variant.

The U.S. has also started to see a downturn in the number of new cases and deaths over the past week. But public health officials have warned that could be a short-lived break, following Labor Day weekend gatherings and millions of kids going back to school this week.

Health officials are also warning of a winter surge that could coincide with particularly severe flu seasons with kids back in school, people congregating more than last winter, and mask requirements gone in most of the country.

Shannon Pettypiece is senior policy reporter for NBC News digital.

Heidi Przybyla is an NBC News correspondent.

Lauren Egan is a White House reporter for NBC News based in Washington.

Watch CBS News

President Biden wants to give homebuyers a $10,000 tax credit. Here's who would qualify.

By Aimee Picchi

Edited By Alain Sherter

Updated on: March 11, 2024 / 11:39 AM EDT / CBS News

Buying a home has become increasingly out of reach for Americans, who are grappling with a double whammy of high interest rates and surging home values. In his State of the Union address on Thursday, President Joe Biden proposed a new tax credit that would provide $10,000 to first-time home buyers.

Biden is also proposing a separate $10,000 tax credit for current homeowners who sell their "starter home" in order to jump into a bigger house. That could help melt a real estate market in which homeowners who locked in low mortgage rates during the pandemic and are hesitant to move because they now face significantly higher mortgage rates.

Biden's proposals — which must be enacted by Congress — were cheered by advocates of affordable housing, with National Housing Council CEO David M. Dworkin calling it "the most consequential State of the Union address on housing in more than 50 years." On a practical level, the tax credits would lower the cost of purchasing a home, an issue that affects Americans of all ages and stripes.

"Housing affordability has become a key issue for Americans spanning all demographics and political divides, and housing policy has mostly remained steady in recent congressional budgets," noted Moody's associate economist Nick Luettke in a report touching on Biden's efforts.

Here's what to know about the proposals.

What are Biden's homebuying tax credits?

Biden is proposing two tax credits aimed at helping Americans buy homes at a time when housing affordability is near an all-time low .

Currently, Americans must earn a six-figure salary to comfortably buy a typical home, compared with $59,000 just four years ago. Home prices have surged about 27% since the start of the pandemic, while mortgage rates have spiked, making it costlier to purchase.

To help offset the cost of buying a home, Biden is proposing the following tax credits:

A first-time homebuyer tax credit of $10,000
A one-year tax credit of up to $10,000 to current homeowners who sell their starter homes

The tax credits are viewed as a bridge to help people afford a home while mortgage rates are high. As a result, they wouldn't be permanent, but instead would be offered for homebuyers who purchase properties in 2024 or 2025, a senior Biden administration official told CBS MoneyWatch.

The Federal Reserve is expected to cut its key interest rate later this year, which would ease the cost of borrowing for all types of loans, from mortgages to credit cards.

Who would qualify for the tax credits?

First-time homebuyers would qualify for an annual tax credit of $5,000 per year for two years, for a total of $10,000.

The one-year tax credit for current homeowners would be available to people who own starter homes, defined as homes below the median home price in their county. The owners would have to sell to another owner-occupant, rather than an investor, according to the White House.

Both tax credits are geared toward "middle-class families," with the Biden administration official telling CBS MoneyWatch that the credits would be limited to households earning less than $200,000.

How would the tax credits impact the housing market?

The Biden administration said the tax credits would help unfreeze the real estate market and make homebuying more affordable for millions.

The first-time buyer tax credit could help 3.5 million middle-class families buy their first home, with the tax credit providing an equivalent reduction of about 1.5 percentage point for two years on the median-priced home, the White House said in a statement. The homeowner tax credit would help about 3 million families buy a bigger home, it added.

"Many homeowners have lower rates on their mortgages than current rates," the White House said. "This 'lock-in' effect makes homeowners more reluctant to sell and give up that low rate, even in circumstances where their current homes no longer fit their household needs."

When would these tax credits go into effect?

That's unclear, because Congress would need to pass legislation to change the tax code — an uphill climb as Democrats and Republicans spar ahead of the November election.

Passing tax credits could be "a particularly arduous task in an election year – though their inclusion in the address underscores the salience of the skyrocketing cost of housing for Americans nationwide," noted Luettke of Moody's.

The White House wants to see Congress pass legislation to enact the tax credits this year, which would allow homebuyers and homeowners to receive the tax credits starting in the 2024 tax year. Homebuyers would receive the credit for a two-year period that they could claim on their tax returns starting with either the 2024 or 2025 tax year, the Biden official said.

Are there tax credits for building new homes?

Yes, Biden also proposed several new efforts to fund the construction of affordable homes and rental units. That includes a new Neighborhood Homes Tax Credit, which would provide an incentive to build or renovate so-called "starter homes," or properties geared for first-time homebuyers.

The White House said the plan would lead to the construction of 2 million new units.

Such proposals to build new homes and rental units may be more effective in dealing with the housing crisis than tax credits for homebuyers, some experts said. Because of underbuilding during the past decade, there is a severe undersupply of housing across the U.S.

"Ultimately, the president's most substantial comments made about housing were those related to new construction," said LendingTree chief economist Jacob Channel in an email. "High home prices in the United States are largely a function of the fact that we simply do not have enough housing supply to meet demand and bring prices down."

Real Estate

Aimee Picchi is the associate managing editor for CBS MoneyWatch, where she covers business and personal finance. She previously worked at Bloomberg News and has written for national news outlets including USA Today and Consumer Reports.

More from CBS News

Scattered strong to severe storms call for a First Alert Weather Day in Pittsburgh area

Donald Trump joins TikTok after reversal on app he tried to ban as president

Steelers captain Cam Heyward arrives at OTAs while still eyeing new contract

UPMC's merger with Washington Health System becomes official

Educate your inbox

Subscribe to Here’s the Deal, our politics newsletter for analysis you won’t find anywhere else.

Thank you. Please check your inbox to confirm.

Chris Megerian, Associated Press Chris Megerian, Associated Press

Will Weissert, Associated Press Will Weissert, Associated Press

Leave your feedback

Copy URL https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/watch-live-biden-delivers-campaign-remarks-at-united-steelworkers-headquarters-in-pittsburgh

WATCH: Biden delivers campaign remarks at United Steelworkers headquarters in Pittsburgh

PITTSBURGH (AP) — President Joe Biden promised cheering, unionized steelworkers on Wednesday that his administration would block the acquisition of U.S. Steel by a Japanese company, and he called for a tripling of tariffs on Chinese steel, seeking to use trade policy to win over working-class votes in the battleground state of Pennsylvania.

Watch Biden’s remarks in the player above.

The Democratic president’s pitch comes as Donald Trump, his likely Republican opponent, tries to chart a path back to the White House with tough-on-China rhetoric and steep tariff proposals of his own.

During a visit to the Pittsburgh headquarters of United Steelworkers, Biden said U.S. Steel “has been an iconic American company for more than a century and it should remain totally American.”

Administration officials are reviewing the proposed acquisition of U.S. Steel by Japan’s Nippon Steel, and Biden said last month he would oppose the deal, saying it was “vital for it to remain an American steel company that is domestically owned and operated.”

But in front of a union audience, he went much further in pledging to block the sale.

“American-owned, American-operated by American union steelworkers — the best in the world — and that’s going to happen, I promise you,” he said.

In another step that his administration argues can protect domestic steelworkers, Biden also announced that he will push for higher tariffs on Chinese steel and aluminum, aiming to insulate American producers from a flood of cheap imports.

Biden’s push on steel reflects the intersection of international trade policy with his reelection effort, although the White House insisted they were more about shielding American manufacturing from unfair trade practices overseas than firing up a union audience.

The current tariff rate is 7.5% for both steel and aluminum but could climb to 25% under Biden’s proposal. The president said he was asking his trade representative to seek the increase, and separate tariffs of 10% on aluminum and 25% on steel would also remain in place.

The U.S. imported roughly $6.1 billion in steel products in the 12 months ending in February 2023, but just 3% of those imports came from China, according to Census Bureau figures. Citing existing trade barriers, the American Iron and Steel Institute said China last year accounted for even less — just 2.1% of U.S. steel imports — making it America’s seventh-biggest source of foreign steel.

However, a senior administration official said there are concerns about China ramping up exports, making the higher tariff levels necessary as a preventative measure.

Liu Pengyu, a spokesman for the Chinese Embassy in Washington, said the “U.S. is making the same mistake again and again” by seeking increased tariffs. In a statement, he also dismissed levies already in place as “the embodiment of unilateralism and protectionism of the U.S.”

Biden insisted that getting tougher on China was sound policy, including when it comes to preventing the exportation of advanced technologies that could “undermine our national security.”

He said he delivered a similar message to Chinese President Xi Jinping during previous conversations, telling him, “You’ll use them for all the wrong reasons, so you’re not going to get those advanced computer chips.”

Biden criticized Trump for failing to take such steps, saying that “for all his tough talk on China, it never occurred to my predecessor to do any of that.”

The administration also promised to pursue investigations against countries and importers that try to saturate existing markets with Chinese steel, and said it was working with Mexico to ensure that Chinese companies cannot circumvent the tariffs by shipping steel there for subsequent export to the United States.

“The president understands we must invest in American manufacturing. But we also have to protect those investments and those workers from unfair exports associated with China’s industrial overcapacity,” said White House national economic adviser Lael Brainard.

U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai said Wednesday that her office, acting on a petition from five national labor unions, was investigating China for “targeting the maritime, logistics and shipbuilding sectors for dominance.”

China produces about half of the world’s steel and is making far more than its domestic market needs. It sells steel on the world market for less than half what U.S.-produced steel costs, senior Biden administration officials said.

The first step to the higher tariffs is the completion of a review of Chinese trade practices. Once Biden gives the official authorization, there will be a public notice and a comment period that could take weeks.

Biden is on a three-day Pennsylvania swing that began in his childhood hometown of Scranton on Tuesday and will include a visit to Philadelphia on Thursday. After ignoring the first two days of Trump’s hush money trial in New York, Biden made a veiled reference to it on Wednesday, joking that his predecessor is “busy right now.”

Biden’s announcement on steel tariffs was cheered by U.S. steelmakers. Kevin Dempsey, president of the American Iron and Steel Institute, accused China of disrupting “world markets both by subsidizing the production of steel and other products, and by dumping those products in the U.S. and other markets.”

To coincide with the announcement, Biden’s campaign released a 60-second ad that will air on Pennsylvania television for the next five days. It features a steelworker, who is also a small-town mayor, praising the president’s economic policies.

Higher tariffs can carry major economic risks. Steel and aluminum could become more expensive, possibly increasing the costs of cars, construction materials and other key goods for U.S. consumers. Also, inflation has already been a drag on Biden’s political fortunes, and his turn toward protectionism echoes Trump’s playbook.

The former president, who has said he would never allow the acquisition of U.S. Steel by a foreign company to go through, imposed broader tariffs on Chinese goods during his administration and has threatened to increase levies on Chinese goods unless they trade on his preferred terms as he campaigns for another term.

An outside analysis by the consultancy Oxford Economics has suggested that putting in place the tariffs Trump has proposed could hurt the overall U.S. economy.

Weissert reported from Washington. Associated Press writer Josh Boak in Washington contributed to this report.

Support Provided By: Learn more

News Wrap: Biden calls for higher tariffs on Chinese metal products

Nation Apr 17

This link leads off-site in a new tab. $10
This link leads off-site in a new tab. $25
This link leads off-site in a new tab. $46
This link leads off-site in a new tab. $100
This link leads off-site in a new tab. $250
This link leads off-site in a new tab. Other

If you’ve saved your payment information with ActBlue Express, your donation will go through immediately.

joebiden.com home page main content

Work with us.

Want to join the Biden-Harris campaign? We are seeking talent to help lead us to victory in 2024. Add your application to our Talent Bank below and we’ll follow up soon as opportunities are available.

Our Talent Bank is an effort to help our campaign find the best applicants for a wide range of positions from field organizers to digital directors and communications staff. All levels of experience and fields of interest are encouraged to apply.

Got plans on June 15?

Together we can finish the job

Friend, we’re flying out one lucky supporter (and their guest) for a star-studded evening in Hollywood with Barack Obama, George Clooney, Julia Roberts, and me!

All you need to do is donate for your chance to win.

I hope to meet you soon!

Dark Brandon

Malarkey ends here.

You’ve reached Dark Brandon.

There’s no malarkey on this side, just facts. And the fact is Trump and his allies will spend hundreds of millions of dollars pretending Trump's first term was not a total disaster for the American people.

Will you step up and donate any amount today to help us fight off Trump and all his malarkey?

Biden Graduated 76th in a Class of 85 at Syracuse University College of Law in 1968?

A meme about joe biden's placement in his 1968 graduating class went viral in april 2024., jordan liles, published april 22, 2024.

About this rating

In April 2024 – just months away from the November U.S. elections – a meme was virally shared on Facebook , X and other websites showing a past photo of President Joe Biden with the words, "Graduated 76th in a Class of 85." As of this writing, it was unclear who created the meme or where it was first posted. Searches with reverse-image search tools showed few results.

One of the popular posts appeared as follows:

A rumor said Joe Biden finished 76th in a class of 85 at Syracuse University College of Law in 1968.

"Did Biden graduate 76th out of a class of 85?," a reader asked Snopes in email. "Saw it posted by a friend on Facebook today 4/19 with an image of a grad that looks kinda like him shaking hands with someone else. Both in regalia. Black & white photo."

This claim was true. Biden finished 76th academically in a class of 85 at Syracuse University College of Law in 1968. This fact was previously confirmed in decades-old reporting from The Associated Press , The New York Times , The Washington Post and others. Many of the dated reports publishing this news cited records that Biden himself released in the late 1980s.

The picture featured in the meme showed Biden with the Rev. William J. Byron, the former president of the University of Scranton. It was captured at the 1976 undergraduate commencement ceremony where Biden – then a U.S. senator – received an honorary degree and addressed students with a speech. Byron died at the age of 96 on April 9, 2024, just days before the meme went viral.

The Syracuse University College of Law Alumni Association once published a letter mentioning Biden's low placement in his graduating class. "But statistics often prove not to be the predictor of one's abilities or prospects," the letter read. "And, indeed, it was after leaving Syracuse that his life and career took off."

On this same subject, Snopes previously reported on Biden's past false claim where he said he finished in the "top half" of his class at Syracuse. That and other false claims about his past – including a plagiarism scandal – reportedly factored in to his decision to drop out of the 1988 presidential race.

Snopes contacted Syracuse University College of Law to request records regarding this matter. We will update this story if we receive any further details.

"Biden Made Tall Claims, Article Says." Charlotte Observer via The Washington Post , 21 Sept. 1987, https://www.newspapers.com/image/625387830/?terms=biden&match=1.

"Biden Urges Students to Be Engaged Citizens at 1976 Commencement." Royal News | The University of Scranton , 18 Nov. 2020, https://news.scranton.edu//articles/2020/11/news-biden.shtml.

Joseph R. Biden Jr, Class of 1968 . Syracuse University College of Law Alumni Association, https://law.syracuse.edu/wp-content/uploads/VP_Biden_Citation.pdf.

Liles, Jordan. "Did White House Announce Biden's IQ Is 187?" Snopes , 30 Jan. 2024, https://www.snopes.com//fact-check/biden-187-iq/.

"Rev. William J. Byron, S.J., The University of Scranton's 21st President Dies." Royal News | The University of Scranton , 9 Apr. 2024, https://news.scranton.edu//articles/2024/04/news-president-byron.shtml.

"Sen. Joe Biden Claimed during a Campaign Appearance in New Hampshire Last Spring That He Finished in the Top Half of His Law School Class, Although Records Indicate He Finished near the Bottom." The Associated Press , https://apnews.com/article/cd977f7ff301993f7976974ba07c5495.

"The Candidates For Vice President." Newsday , 2 Nov. 2008, p. K7, https://www.newspapers.com/image/730761354/.

Toner, Robin. "Biden Assails New Report of Dishonesty." The New York Times , 21 Sept. 1987, https://www.nytimes.com/1987/09/21/us/biden-assails-new-report-of-dishonesty.html.

Waxman, Olivia B. "Why Joe Biden's First Campaign for President Collapsed After Just 3 Months." TIME , 30 July 2019, https://time.com/5636715/biden-1988-presidential-campaign/.

By Jordan Liles

Jordan Liles is a Senior Reporter who has been with Snopes since 2016.

Article Tags

IMAGES

Opinion
President Biden's first 100 days: What he's gotten done
Biden Praises Strong Jobs Report
Opinion
Panelist: bad homework by Biden campaign in preparing for abortion
The defining photos of Biden’s first 100 days

COMMENTS

FACT SHEET: President Biden Announces Plan to Lower Housing Costs for
President Biden is calling on Congress to pass a mortgage relief credit that would provide middle-class first-time homebuyers with an annual tax credit of $5,000 a year for two years. This is the ...
Fact Check: Biden claims record "15 million new jobs" in 3 years
The deficit then fell under Trump and Biden in fiscal 2021 (to about $2.8 trillion) and again under Biden in fiscal 2022 (to about $1.4 trillion). But it then rose in fiscal 2023 (to about $1.7 ...
Biden's Numbers, January 2024 Update
Unemployment — The unemployment rate fell from 6.4% at the time Biden took office to 3.4% in January 2023 and again in April, the lowest since June 1969. Since then, the rate has crept up ...
FACT SHEET: President Biden Announces New Workforce Hubs to Train and
Today, President Biden will announce four new Workforce Hubs to ensure all Americans can access the good jobs created by the President's Investing in America agenda, which includes the American ...
Biden administration says it's time for the federal workforce to
The Biden administration on Thursday detailed new guidance for a return to work for federal employees, making clear that they must "substantially" increase in-office work. The guidance called ...
Biden to Offer Flexible Working Long-Term to More Federal Employees
Biden is likely to offer many federal employees a hybrid model, per The Post. An official announcement is set for June. Before the pandemic, just 3% of federal employees worked permanently from home.
Here's How the Biden Transition Team Built His Administration ...
Feb 4, 2021, 2:00 AM PST. President Joe Biden's transition team built his administration remotely. Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images. Joe Biden's transition team looked for creative ways to build ...
Fact Sheet: Biden-harris Administration Announces Action to Save
Today, the Biden-Harris Administration announced an action that will save homebuyers and homeowners with new FHA-insured mortgages an average of $800 per year, lowering housing costs for an ...
Biden administration moves toward making the pandemic work-from-home
Still, a broader endorsement of a work-from-home culture by the Biden administration would have far-reaching implications for the 2.1 million federal employees around the country, as well as the ...
Biden on Work From Home: 'It's Time to Get Americans Back to ...
President Joe Biden encouraged American workers to return to the office in his State of the Union Address Tuesday night. At this point in the pandemic, 15.4% of Americans aged 16 and older worked ...
Here's the full list of Biden's executive actions so far
Executive order promoting Covid-19 safety in domestic and international travel. In an effort to curb the spread of Covid-19 through travel, Biden mandated mask-wearing on all forms of public ...
Many Biden White House staff are working from home in another ...
That doesn't include Biden's top staffers such as chief of staff Ron Klain and press secretary Jen Psaki, who were in the building on Wednesday when Biden arrived for the first time. But other ...
Fact-checking Biden on being a full professor for four years
Joe Biden at a forum on the opioid epidemic at the University of Pennsylvania on April 11, 2019. (AP) Biden was the first individual to hold the Franklin professorship, and his tenure overlapped ...
Biden's Cabinet and Senior Advisers
By Zach Montague. March 18, 2021. WASHINGTON — President Biden has chosen a team of cabinet members and senior advisers who bring government experience and expertise in their fields to confront ...
Jill Biden returns to the classroom as a working first lady
Jill Biden returns to the classroom as a working first lady. Biden is the first first lady to leave the White House and log hours at a full-time job. First Lady Jill Biden speaks with students as ...
Biden announces sweeping vaccine mandates affecting millions of workers
Employees working in health care facilities that receive Medicare or Medicaid reimbursement will also be required to be vaccinated, Biden said, a move that will impact 7 million workers at 50,000 ...
President Biden wants to give homebuyers a $10,000 tax credit. Here's
In his State of the Union address on Thursday, President Joe Biden proposed a new tax credit that would provide $10,000 to first-time home buyers. Biden is also proposing a separate $10,000 tax ...
FACT SHEET: Biden-
The $130 billion in President Biden's American Rescue Plan directed to the nation's K-12 schools have allowed school districts across the country to invest in teacher pipeline programs ...
WATCH: Biden delivers campaign remarks at United Steelworkers ...
The current tariff rate is 7.5% for both steel and aluminum but could climb to 25% under Biden's proposal. The president said he was asking his trade representative to seek the increase, and ...
Work with Us
We are seeking talent to help lead us to victory in 2024. Add your application to our Talent Bank below and we'll follow up soon as opportunities are available. Our Talent Bank is an effort to help our campaign find the best applicants for a wide range of positions from field organizers to digital directors and communications staff. All ...
Joe Biden: The President
President Biden represented Delaware for 36 years in the U.S. Senate before becoming the 47th Vice President of the United States. As President, Biden will restore America's leadership and build ...
Biden Graduated 76th in a Class of 85 at Syracuse University College of
Jordan Liles. Joe Biden graduated 76th academically in a class of 85 students at Syracuse University College of Law in 1968. In April 2024 - just months away from the November U.S. elections ...
FACT SHEET: Biden-Harris Administration Announces New Actions to
Today, ahead of Teacher Appreciation Week, the Biden-Harris Administration is announcing new efforts to strengthen the teaching profession and support schools across the country, including actions ...