Hello and welcome to the 538 Politics Podcast. I'm Galen Druke.

Love it or hate it. This is President Biden's economy and he's taking credit for it.

In recent weeks, Biden has been rolling out his economic pitch to Americans.

It started with a high profile speech in Chicago where he branded his policies as quote,

Bidenomics, and positioned them in opposition to trickle down Reaganomics.

Since then, Biden and his surrogates have fanned out across the country to make their pitch.

This all comes at a time when Americans are quite pessimistic about the economy.

In recent polls, less than a third of Americans say the economy is good,

and Biden gets some of his lowest marks on his handling of the issue.

But still, economic data paints a relatively strong picture.

The unemployment rate, according to data out last Friday, stands at 3.6%.

That's close to a 50 year low.

An inflation, although stubborn, has fallen to 4% from a high of 9% last summer.

So today we're going to spend the whole episode talking about the economy.

How much of Biden's approach to economic policy is new?

What does it actually look like on the ground?

And why are so many Americans pessimistic?

Here with me to discuss, is federal reserve and economics reporter at the New York Times,

Gina Smilick. Welcome to the podcast. Welcome back to the podcast, I should say.

Thanks for having me.

Also with us is chief economic correspondent at Axios Neil Irwin.

Likewise, welcome back to the podcast.

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