Home Global Rising Prices, Once Seen as Temporary, Threaten Biden’s Agenda: NYT

Rising Prices, Once Seen as Temporary, Threaten Biden’s Agenda: NYT

0
Rising Prices, Once Seen as Temporary, Threaten Biden’s Agenda: NYT
Container ships waited to enter the Port of Los Angeles earlier this month. Inflation, caused in part by supply chain problems, is leading to faster increases in the prices of food, gasoline and consumer goods than at any other point this century. Erin Schaff/The New York Times. Courtesy The New York Times.

WASHINGTON — At least once a week, a team of President Biden’s top advisers meet on Zoom to address the nation’s supply chain crisis. They discuss ways to relieve backlogs at America’s ports, ramp up semiconductor production for struggling automakers and swell the ranks of America’s truck drivers.

The conversations are aimed at one goal: taming accelerating price increases that are hurting the economic recovery, unsettling American consumers and denting Mr. Biden’s popularity.

An inflation surge is presenting a fresh challenge for Mr. Biden, who for months insisted that rising prices were a temporary hangover from the pandemic recession and would quickly recede. Instead, the president and his aides are now bracing for high inflation to persist into next year, with Americans continuing to see faster — and sustained — increases in prices for food, gasoline and other consumer goods than at any point this century.

That reality has complicated Mr. Biden’s push for sweeping legislation to boost workers, expand access to education and fight poverty and climate change. And it is dragging on the president’s approval ratings, which could threaten Democrats’ already tenuous hold on Congress in the 2022 midterm elections.

Read the full story.

LEAVE A REPLY

Please enter your comment!
Please enter your name here