Biden Links Climate, Jobs in Philadelphia Visit

President Joe Biden touted his economic agenda Thursday at a Philadelphia shipyard, saying a new offshore wind manufacturing project there is an example of a project will create union jobs and help meet the administration’s clean energy goals to fight climate change.

Workers in nine different unions have started building the vessel Acadia, which will be used to help build offshore wind farms. Biden said the Inflation Reduction Act is creating millions of clean energy manufacturing jobs, including offshore wind.

“A lot of my friends in organized labor know when I think climate, I think jobs. I think union jobs,” he said to applause. “This law is creating millions of good paying clean energy manufacturing jobs including offshore wind.”

Polls show Biden has had a tough time breaking through with his economic message, which his White House has branded as “Bidenomics.” His visit to the Philly Shipyard, where he was surrounded by workers in hard hats, was an effort to show his agenda is working.

He took credit for 13 million new jobs across the country, the lowest inflation rate of any major economy in the world and the longest stretch of unemployment below 4 percent in the last 50 years, saying “we’re beginning to come back.” He also took a jab at former President Donald Trump, the frontrunner for the GOP presidential nomination.

“The share of working age Americans in the workforce is as high as its been in 20 years, including during every single day under my predecessor,” he said. “Folks, it’s not an accident. It’s my economic plan in action. It’s Bidenomics.”

Biden said his administration has attracted more than $500 billion in private investments in manufacturing and clean energy, including offshore wind. “We’re creating jobs in America and we’re exporting American products,” he said.

He also announced the first-ever Gulf of Mexico offshore wind lease, the latest in the administration’s actions to build 30 gigawatts of offshore wind projects by 2030. That’s enough to power more than 10 million homes with clean energy, according to the White House.

Just three in 10 Americans feel the country is doing a better job recovering economically than the rest of the world since the pandemic, according to a Monmouth University poll released Wednesday. Americans are split on Biden's handling of jobs and unemployment and give him negative ratings for his handling of transportation and energy infrastructure and inflation.

Biden’s trip is intended to show people how Bidenomics is delivering, White House principal deputy press secretary Olivia Dalton said.

“It’s still going to take a minute for Americans to feel the full impact” of economic gains over the last two years, she said, after getting through the pandemic and global inflation following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Biden's trip Thursday marked his 27th visit to the battleground state of Pennsylvania since he took office.