Are you better off today than you were four years ago?

On March 6, 2024, when it became clear that President Biden would face Donald Trump in the 2024 election, Rep.Elise Stefanik boldly asked the headlined question once posed by Ronald Reagan. And while nearly two months have since passed, the issue is still an important one as we approach a Trump v. Biden rematch and many Americans still buy the idea that Republicans are better for the economy than Democrats.

So let's look at where we were four years ago. March 6, 2020 was the eve of the COVID 19 shutdown in the US, the day that the Grand Princess cruise ship was denied permission to enter San Francisco harbor because some passengers had the disease. President Trump's response was notable: he said he preferred that people remain on board the cruise ship, where more would be exposed, rather than "have the numbers on land double because of one ship that wasn't our fault." 

With Trump at the helm of our government, denying the seriousness of the virus, downplaying the need for masks or vaccines, and instead proposing quack treatments like swallowing household cleaners, 400,000 Americans lost their lives by mid-January, 2021. 

That's why we elected Joe Biden in 2020 — and why we will re-elect him in 2024. He invests in the public interest and has done what it takes to enable America to recover from the disaster of Trump's presidency, one described by Chris Hayes as "the most bumbling, incompetent, chaotic mismanagement of a crisis since Herbert Hoover and the Great Depression, nearly 100 years ago." 

It's painful to look back on such a terrible time, but let's not forget: It was Joe Biden who instituted a massive vaccine rollout across the country when he came into office in January 2021. Fewer than 2.8 million Americans had been vaccinated before the end of 2020; but by the middle of March — less than two months after Biden had put his National Strategy in place — the Biden Administration had delivered more than 100 million doses of the vaccine. And, just a little over a month later — on April 21, 2021 — the Biden team announced they'd doubled their initial goal, and had delivered 200 million shots in 100 days.

Through subsidies to the Affordable Care Act and by closing the Medicaid coverage gap for states like ours that refused to expand Medicaid, President Biden also made sure we all had access to healthcare.

In addition, he ensured that hospitals had sufficient protective gear so that health care personnel could safely take care of us…and that no one was left behind.

Over 20 million people had filed for unemployment by the end of April, 2020. The CARES Act, passed by Congress on March 25, 2020, began the process of addressing the economic needs of those who were unemployed as a result of the pandemic, but the Biden Administration greatly expanded that support for all of us. The President and his fellow Democrats in Congress made sure we could not only survive the pandemic, but that we would be able to stay afloat financially.

They achieved this goal through The American Rescue Plan which was shepherded through Congress in fewer than two months after the Biden Administration took office — expanding unemployment benefits, providing an enhanced child tax credit, and offering both rental assistance and an eviction moratorium so low income Americans would suffer less while workplaces were shut down.

And once he had taken care of us, Biden turned to rescuing the economy through massive stimulus to bring back manufacturing in America, to restore our crumbling infrastructure, and to begin a serious assault on climate change by investing in solar, wind and batteries to power electric vehicles.

These investments have led to the US enjoying the world’s fastest recovery from the ravages of the COVID pandemic. We've had two of the strongest years of job growth in history … over 15 million jobs have been created since 2021, including 750,000 new manufacturing positions…and by the end of 2023, the unemployment rate dropped to 3.5% — the lowest in 50 years — including near record low unemployment for Hispanics, African-Americans, and people with disabilities.

So the answer to Elise Stefanik's question: Are you better off now than you were 4 years ago, is a resounding YES.

Thanks to the Biden Administration we are recovering from the Trump disaster. We are alive. Wages are rising, and more and more of us are thriving as our economy picks up steam. 

Four more years of Joe Biden is just what we need to keep our country moving forward toward a better future. Watch his powerful State of the Union speech to see his vision for an America that works for all of us.