Karl W. Smith, Columnist

Biden’s Revival of Factory Jobs Isn’t All It’s Cracked Up to Be

There has been a rise in manufacturing employment, but it’s small and it’s unclear what role the president’s policies had in creating it.

October 17, 2023 at 10:00 AM UTC

By Karl W. Smith

Karl W. Smith is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist. Previously, he was vice president for federal policy at the Tax Foundation and assistant professor of economics at the University of North Carolina.

Factory-made politics.
Photographer: Nic Antaya/Getty Images North America

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President Joe Biden has been traveling the US touting a manufacturing revival that he no doubt hopes will help his chances for re-election. Unfortunately, there is much less substance to this “Biden Boom” than the White House would have Americans believe. Even under the rosiest of projections, the administration’s signature programs will do little to increase manufacturing employment — and even less to uplift the overall economy.

Construction spending on manufacturing facilities more than doubled from an annualized rate of $81 billion this time last year to an all-time high of nearly $200 billion in August. Some of that increase can be attributed to the incentives provided by the Inflation Reduction Act and the CHIPS Act, both championed by the president.