By David Lawder
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The Biden administration is dispatching U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen to Chicago and Milwaukee this week as part of a stepped-up domestic travel schedule to sell Americans on the benefits of President Joe Biden’s economic policies.
Yellen will make the case in remarks to the Economic Club of Chicago on Thursday that the pandemic recovery was faster, fairer and more transformative than previous economic recoveries, the Treasury said late on Sunday.
In an excerpt of her remarks, Yellen will seek to draw contrasts with the Trump administration’s failure to enact major infrastructure legislation, touting Biden’s $1.2 trillion infrastructure law, his investments in semiconductors and hundreds of billions of dollars in clean energy tax breaks.
“Our country’s infrastructure has been deteriorating for decades. In the Trump Administration, the idea of doing anything to fix it was a punch line. But this administration has delivered,” Yellen will say.
Yellen has previously touted Biden’s investment legislation, taking trips to North Carolina and Boston in recent weeks, but has avoided direct comparisons with former President Donald Trump. She will speak in Chicago two days after the Republican nominating contest in New Hampshire, where Trump is hoping to deliver a knockout blow to rival Nikki Haley, who was U.S. ambassador to the United Nations for the first two years of the Trump administration.
Persistent inflation has hindered Biden’s efforts to win credit from voters for his handling of the economy, but that is now easing. Yellen has said that as wage increases outpace prices, Americans will start to feel more financially confident.
Last Friday, the University of Michigan’s consumer sentiment survey for January hit its highest level in 2-1/2 years, reflecting a brightening of moods across all age and income groups.
After her speech in Chicago, Yellen will travel to Milwaukee on Jan. 26 to visit a worker training facility, partly funded by Biden’s $1.9 trillion COVID-19 relief law, the American Rescue Plan Act.
(Reporting by David Lawder; Editing by Paul Simao)
