Biden expresses confidence in the economy. Voters may be sceptical.

President Biden has grown confident enough in the economy he runs — despite continued inflation and high interest rates — that he is campaigning for re-election by eagerly attaching the name “Bidenomics” to his approach.

“Folks, this is what it comes down to,” Mr Biden said as he embarked on a three-week, government-wide effort to focus on the economy. “By investing in America, we deliver results. Since I took office, more than 13 million jobs have been created.”

In a memo to reporters, two of the president’s top advisers, Anita Dunn and Mike Donilon, credited “Bidenomics” with helping the country recover from the pandemic, saying the economy has “recovered faster than most experts thought possible”.

The pair repeated the phrase “Bidenomics” nine more times in the three-and-a-half page memo — a sign that the president’s strategists believe focusing on the economy will help his campaign for a second term.

In their memo, Mr. Donilon and Mrs. Dunn polls showing Americans broadly support some of the president’s key economic policies. But that analysis ignores some dark signs for the president as the 2024 election begins to heat up.

Independent polls show that large majorities in the country do not believe that the president’s economic policies have put the country on the right track. In an NBC poll released Sunday74 percent of Americans said the country was on the wrong track.

Past polls have shown that many of the concerns are about the president’s economic policies. A Associated Press survey in May found that only 33 percent of adults approved of his handling of the economy.

On Monday, Mr. Biden tried to demonstrate that his policies are producing tangible results. He said more than $40 billion would be distributed nationwide to expand high-speed Internet lines — a program he compared to Franklin D. Roosevelt’s efforts to bring electricity to rural parts of the country nearly 100 years ago.

The discrepancy between Mr. Biden’s enthusiasm for his achievements and the polls on America’s feelings on the subject may prove to be the biggest test of the White House’s new strategy.

Asked on Monday if the president and his top aides were confident they could change the public’s perception of the economy — and how they deal with it — Karine Jean-Pierre, the White House press secretary, gave a blunt answer. .

“We’re going to try,” she told reporters.

To that end, Mr Biden’s team has collected data that focuses entirely on the positive. A chart distributed by the White House on Monday shows significant improvement from pre-pandemic levels: higher household net worth and disposable income, fewer credit card delinquencies and bankruptcies, and a decline in the number of the uninsured and those with debts to third parties collection.

Mr Biden’s advisers — both within the White House and on the small but growing campaign operation — are quick to provide examples of how things have gotten better: for manufacturing companies, people who regularly order insulin, and local governments grappling with aging infrastructure.

Mr. Biden’s aides are also happy to accept comparisons to “Reaganomics,” which has been used for decades to describe former President Ronald Reagan’s economic policies. The president’s advisers argue that Biden’s rejection of tax cuts and his focus on policies that help the middle class contrast sharply with Reagan.

White House officials said Vice President Kamala Harris and many of the president’s top cabinet officials would be touring the country over the next three weeks to make similar comments about the president’s economic record. On Wednesday in Chicago, Mr. Biden will deliver what aides call a “cornerstone” speech designed to broadly explain his economic approach.

The challenge for the president and his team now is to find a way to get their message across to the American people.

On the one hand, the president may have one of the largest megaphones in the world, and his advisers intend to use it. But his message competes with a war raging in Europe and the political and legal chaos surrounding former President Donald J. Trump as the administration pursues legal action against him.

Will it help to give his economic approach a catchy name – “Bidenomics”? Mrs. Jean-Pierre said she believed so.

“I think it’s pretty smart,” she told reporters.