First lady Jill Biden used a pre-Labor Day celebration of Chicago’s labor unions Wednesday to leverage their support and sell her husband’s “Bidenomics” stimulus programs to voters who remain dissatisfied with the president’s job performance largely due to their feelings about the nation’s economy.
“My name is Jill Biden. I’m the first lady of the United States. And I’m a proud card-carrying union member,” the first lady, a community college teacher, said during a six-minute address to hundreds of labor leaders attending an outdoor reception overlooking Lake Michigan at McCormick Place.
“Unions are at the center of Joe’s need to build our economy from the bottom up and the middle out,” she said, using President Joe Biden’s description of his “Bidenomics” theory. “You are the backbone of this country.”
Since her husband launched the “Bidenomics” theme at a June 28 event at the Old Post Office in Chicago, the White House has sought to pitch economic successes of programs regarding infrastructure, clean air, computer chip research and other manufacturing to try to counter sluggish job approval ratings among an electorate still feeling the effects of inflation.
“Now hopefully you’ve been hearing about ‘Bidenomics,’” she said. “Joe’s vision has transformed our economy. More than 13 million jobs created. Unemployment under 4%.”
President Biden has long courted labor support throughout his political career and it is a key ally in his bid for reelection next year.
Bob Reiter, head of the Chicago Federation of Labor, which hosted the event, reminded the guests of Biden’s vow to be the most “pro-union” president in the nation’s history.
“Things like unemployment rates and jobs created aren’t just numbers to us. They represent people, families like Joe’s when he was just growing up, like mine, maybe like yours,” Jill Biden said.
“President Biden and I understand the middle class because we are from the middle class and unions built the middle class,” she said. “That is why Joey is fighting for unions: so that workers can fight for what they need — better pay, safer working conditions, flexibility and health care.”
Reiter cited organized labor gains over the last year that included voter approval of a state constitutional amendment enshrining a right to organize, the election of union organizer Brandon Johnson as mayor and the city’s history in the labor movement that helped Chicago gain the Democratic National Convention next year.
Jill Biden’s visit was the latest in a series of recent White House-backed trips by various officials over the last two months and was her first to the area since she visited Rolling Meadows High School in November.
On Wednesday, she traveled from the Indianapolis area as part of a back-to-school tour and, after overnighting in Chicago, is scheduled to go to Madison, Wisconsin, for a cancer prevention event Thursday.
