PHILADELPHIA — President Joe Biden on Monday made his seventh visit this year to the City of Brotherly Love, telling a crowd of union workers that America’s best days are yet to come and that support for unions is at its highest point in 60 years.
“I told you when I ran for president that I would support you, and I will,” Biden said. “There are a lot of politicians in this country who don’t know how to say the word union. I’m proud to say the word union, and I’m proud to be the most pro-union president. … I don’t hide it.”
The president delivered his speech at a rally outside the Sheet Metal Workers office on Columbus Boulevard, ahead of the Philadelphia Council AFL-CIO’s annual Labor Day parade. Despite 80-degree temperatures and high humidity, hundreds of union workers showed up to hear the president’s Labor Day speech.
“On this Labor Day, we celebrate work, good-paying work, work where you can raise a family, union work,” Biden said. He noted that he was often “called ‘middle class Joe,’ as if that wasn’t a compliment. But it’s true,” he said. Biden then repeated a familiar line from his final campaign speech, adding something for Monday’s audience: “Wall Street didn’t build America, the middle class built America,” he said. “And unions built the middle class.”
Biden said he will continue to call on Congress “to finally and fully pass the PRO Act,” which I would improve The National Labor Relations Act, to make it easier for workers to organize and toughen penalties for employers who violate it. And he ticked off his list of accomplishments since taking office.
“In my first two years, I created almost 13.5 million jobs, 800,000 new manufacturing jobs. Where is it written that America will not lead the world in manufacturing?” Biden said. “And the lowest period of unemployment below 4 percent in 50 years.”
Indeed, Biden has had a string of recent economic victories. On Friday, the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that the national unemployment rate rose slightly in August to 3.8%, up from 3.5% in July, and the economy added 187,000 jobs, more than the 170,000 expected and more than the 157,000 jobs added in July. Experts have interpreted the rise in the unemployment rate as a sign that the economy is growing and more people are looking for work. And last week, the Biden administration proposed a fresh rule that estimates create 3.6 million additional workers is entitled to overtime pay.
Employment growth exceeds economists’ expectations, and unemployment is rising
The outlook for workers in Pennsylvania is similarly positive, according to a fresh report Keystone Research CenterPennsylvania added 23,000 union jobs in 2022 and had a record-low unemployment rate of 3.5% in July. Through the first six months of the year, there were about 0.7 unemployed workers for every vacant job, meaning there are still more vacancies than workers. And the report found that between March 2022 and March 2023, workers in the Keystone State saw a 7.6% escalate in their average weekly pay, a 1.7% escalate after accounting for inflation.
“Joe Biden has influence,” Daniel Bauder, president of the Philadelphia Council AFL-CIO, said before Biden took the stage. “He’s the best union president we’ve ever had.”
Biden won Pennsylvania in 2020.winning 20 electoral votes and moving them back into the blue column. The Keystone State flipped red in 2016, helping Donald Trump secure his first term.
Trump is leading the 2024 Republican nomination race by a wide margin. He visited Pennsylvania in July, stopping at Erie at the election rally where he insulted Philadelphia: “Has this city gone to hell or what?”
Since announcing his re-election campaign, Trump has been indicted on four separate counts, two of which were directly related to his attempts to cling to power after his election loss. Federal an indictment was filed Last month, he claims Trump started working against the legitimate results of the Pennsylvania election November 11, 2020, when he “publicly defamed” Philadelphia Commissioner, He then communicated repeatedly with the Acting Attorney General and Acting Deputy Attorney General regarding false allegations that Pennsylvania had reported 205,000 more votes than its electorate had counted.
Biden saved his most pointed criticism for Trump on Monday, but he didn’t mention him by name. “The guy who held this office before me was one of only two presidents in history who left office with fewer jobs in America than when he was elected,” he said. The other president, Biden added, was Herbert Hoover.
“The big real estate builder, the last guy, hasn’t built a damn thing,” Biden said. “Under my predecessor, infrastructure week became a joke, but under my watch, infrastructure has been a decade and it’s a headline.”
“When the last guy was here, we were sending jobs to China,” he said. “Now we’re bringing jobs back from China. When the last guy was here, your pensions were in jeopardy. We helped save millions of pensions with your help. When the last guy was here, he was looking out at the world from Park Avenue. I’m looking out at him from Scranton, Pennsylvania, I’m looking out at him from Claymont, Delaware.”
