Today’s CPI report and small business data are another reminder that President Biden is lowering costs for consumers and building a stronger, fairer economy that lifts up small business owners. New numbers show Bidenomics has driven inflation down, brought wages up, and empowered Americans to file a record-setting number of small business applications last year. President Biden is growing the economy from the bottom up and middle out, and investing in small business owners on Main Street, not corporate executives on Wall Street. While Donald Trump is calling for an economic crash that would devastate hardworking Americans, President Biden is working every single day to give small business owners the resources they need to thrive and ensure our economy works for everyone.

NEW: President Biden is giving hardworking Americans the resources they need to thrive and file small business applications in record numbers.

White House: “Americans filed 16 million new business applications during the first three years of my Administration—16 million acts of hope, the strongest stretch on record. That’s three years in a row with more applications filed than in any other year on record, including any year of the prior Administration.” 

NEW: Today’s CPI report shows that President Biden is making progress to drive down inflation and lower costs. 

CNN: “US consumer prices rose 3.4% annually to close out 2023, capping a year of substantial progress on efforts to rein in decades-high inflation.”

USA Today: “The national unemployment rate held steady at 3.7% and the economy added 216,000 jobs in December. Employment grew in government, health care, social assistance, and construction, according to the Labor Department. Gross domestic product, a measure of all goods and services produced in the U.S., grew at a 5.2% annualized pace from July through September, the fastest in nearly two years.” 

Brendan Duke, Center for American Progress: “December’s wage and inflation data have placed this economic recovery into the #1 spot for inflation-adjusted wage growth among economic recoveries from post-1980 recessions. Real wage growth is a strength of this recovery, not a weakness.”

Meanwhile, Trump is calling for an economic crash that would devastate hardworking families across the country. 

Trump: “When there’s a crash, I hope it’s going to be during this next twelve months, because I don’t want to be Herbert Hoover.” 

USA Today: “Former President Donald Trump seems to be rooting for a financial crash this year so that it can help him get reelected.”

MSNBC: “He’s hoping for his own country’s economy to take a sharp downturn, indifferent to the consequences, just so long as it happens quickly so it wouldn’t cause him any PR inconveniences.”

Trump’s failed MAGAnomics policies benefited the ultra-wealthy and large corporations while leaving hardworking Americans behind. 

Washington Post Analysis: “One of President Donald Trump’s lesser-known but profoundly damaging legacies will be the explosive rise in the national debt that occurred on his watch. The financial burden that he’s inflicted on our government will wreak havoc for decades, saddling our kids and grandkids with debt. The national debt has risen by almost $7.8 trillion during Trump’s time in office.”

Washington Post Analysis: “The growth in the annual deficit under Trump ranks as the third-biggest increase, relative to the size of the economy, of any U.S. presidential administration, according to a calculation by Eugene Steuerle, co-founder of the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center.”

Politico: “The nation’s fiscal outlook looks ever bleaker, thanks in part to deficit spending during President Donald Trump’s first term, Congress’ nonpartisan budget scorekeeper projected Tuesday.”