Gavin Newsom Claims Americans Were Better Off Under Biden
Gavin Newsom claims Americans were better off under Biden.
The California governor has been one of the most consistent defenders of the Biden-Harris record. During the 2024 campaign he told voters they were "much better off today" than before Joe Biden and Kamala Harris took office. He has repeated versions of that argument in interviews since the election.
New detail: Newsom backed up his case with a specific jobs claim. He said there were "eight times more jobs created in the last 3.5 years than the last three Republican administrations combined." The Sacramento Bee fact-checked the statement on November 1, 2024, and rated it True.
The Bee counted about 16.1 million jobs created under Biden, measured from January 2021. The comparison counted each president from the January he took office to the January he left. It found jobs fell by about 2.7 million under Trump's first term, mainly because of the COVID downturn in 2020. George W. Bush added about 1.36 million jobs and George H.W. Bush about 2.6 million. Added together, the three Republican administrations came out far behind Biden's total. The Bee also noted that extending the comparison to Ronald Reagan, who added about 16 million jobs over eight years, changes the picture.
Critics say job totals tell only part of the story. Many of the jobs counted under Biden were positions recovering after the pandemic shutdowns, not brand new growth. Supporters of Newsom's view answer that unemployment stayed low for much of Biden's term. Starting the count at the bottom of a historic crash makes any president's numbers look strong.
Prices are the other side of the argument. House Budget Committee Republicans said prices rose about 15.5% under Biden. Inflation hit its highest level in about four decades in 2022, and interest rates climbed sharply as the Federal Reserve tried to bring it down. Polls during that period showed many families felt their paychecks did not keep up with groceries, rent and gas.
That gap between the statistics and how people felt became one of the central issues of the 2024 election, which Donald Trump won. Exit polls showed the economy and inflation near the top of voters' concerns.
Newsom has also said Biden could have served a full second term through 2029. That view drew sharp criticism from conservative commentators, who pointed to the age concerns that led Biden to leave the 2024 race.
Newsom's term as governor ends in January 2027, and he cannot run again because of term limits. He has said he will consider a presidential run after the 2026 midterms. If he runs, his defense of the Biden economy is likely to be one of the first things his opponents raise, and one of the first things he will have to explain to voters who remember what they paid at the store.
The debate comes down to one question every voter can answer from personal experience.
Were you better off under Biden? YES OR NO?
