While stock market performance is just one metric of several that are used to assess the health of the economy, Biden can tout that, on balance, most major stock indexes have increased in value since January 2021. Still, critics will contend that stocks would have fared even better under a different president and different policies coming out of the White House.
When the Fed hikes rates, it applies downward pressure on economic output. Because rates were so low for so long during the pandemic, inflation got out of hand, and in order to stifle those high prices the government is trying to depress demand, which in turn can cause unemployment to rise and GDP growth to turn negative.
“During the period of getting inflation under control, [on] the employment side, we’ve been showing a great deal of resiliency, which bodes well for the stock market,” Brian Marks, executive director of the University of New Haven’s Entrepreneurship and Innovation Program, told the Washington Examiner.
Marks said that some of that growth in the stock market over the past two years or so is also attributable to the post-COVID-19 economic recovery that featured many economic factors bounding back to where they were prior to the pandemic taking hold.Marks pointed to Biden's policies on the manufacturing sector as having affected the stock market.