Washington Post Report Underscores How Biden-Harris-Casey’s Economic Failures Have Devastated Erie

PITTSBURGH, PA. — A recent Washington Post report on Erie, Pennsylvania underscored the economic hardship families across the commonwealth are experiencing because of career politicians’ failed economic agenda. 

“While Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, and Bob Casey lie about the success of Bidenomics, real Pennsylvanians are hurting. Families are suffering because thanks to their radical economic policies, inflation skyrocketed, wages stagnated, and jobs continued to be shipped overseas. Biden, Harris, and weak career politician Bob Casey have been in Washington for years, and they’ve failed working-class Pennsylvanians,” said Dave McCormick about the article.

“Instead of rolling back their extreme agenda and putting forward actual solutions, Harris and Casey are doubling down — touting more government spending and socialist price controls that will drive up inflation and destroy our economy. I’m running to stop this radicalism and ensure hard-working Pennsylvanians get the support they deserve in Washington, ” continued McCormick.

The Washington Post reports: 

Esther Kendema begins work at 4:30 a.m., cleaning buildings for a local university. After a full shift, she drives a few hours for Uber. Then the mother of 10 heads to her third job, cleaning a community center on the city’s east side.

Kendema, 42, often gets only two or three hours of sleep before starting her daily routine all over again. She feels the pressure of a $579 monthly car loan payment for her used Ford Explorer, along with bills for water, electricity and everything else her family needs.

“The economy is tough, tough, tough. But we have to do the best we can,” she said.

Kendema’s struggles may be distinctive. But they are not unique. As Election Day draws nearer, a sizable majority of Americans — despite low unemployment, steady growth and rising wages — say they are dissatisfied with the economy.
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The county has fewer jobs and residents today than it did in 2001. Though the 3.9 percent unemployment rate in June was lower than the national 4.1 percent mark, that’s in part because many people have dropped out of the labor force because of age or disability. The poverty rate is higher than the national average; a larger share of people rely on government assistance, including food stamps; and job opportunities for the young are scarce.

Almost 1 in 5 Americans live in a “left behind” county like this one, according to the Economic Innovation Group, a nonpartisan research outfit. These roughly 1,000 U.S. counties grew their population and household income less than half as fast as the nation did between 2000 and 2016.
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That persistent discontent is shaping the presidential contest. By a 2-to-1 margin, voters in a CNBC poll this month trusted former president Donald Trump rather than Vice President Kamala Harris to deliver prosperity; 78 percent of those surveyed called the economy “fair” or “poor.” 
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Like many factory communities, Erie has been battered over the past two decades by a number of shocks: the rise of China as a global manufacturer; job-killing automation; the Great Recession of 2008; and the coronavirus pandemic.
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Erie’s situation is representative of scores of communities that once thrived thanks to heavy industry. American factory jobs have been disappearing for almost half a century, as technology allows fewer hands to do more work and countries such as China and Mexico provide lower-cost alternatives to production in the United States.

In the 1950s, more than half of county jobs were in factories. Manufacturing today accounts for about 15 percent of county employment, still almost twice the national average. Local officials tout bright spots such as Erie Insurance, which has added jobs. But finding a second act has been difficult.

Between 1980 and 2010, the number of county residents stagnated around 280,000, even as the nation’s population grew by more than one-third. Then the population fell by about 10,000 people over the next decade, as people died or left for better opportunities.

The county had 130,239 jobs in June 2001, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. By the end of last year, that figure had fallen nearly 9 percent to 119,021, while total U.S. jobs grew about 20 percent over the same period.

More recently, the end of pandemic-era benefits, including the expanded child tax credit, which expired in 2021, pushed an estimated 3 million children in the United States back into the poverty they had only recently escaped. Median household income, adjusted for inflation, fell in 2022 for the third consecutive year, according to the Census Bureau.

Against that backdrop, higher prices have proved to be one shock too many for the poor while the affluent grumble and go about their lives.

“We talk about being more divided than ever. I don’t know if it’s a Republican or a Democrat divide. It’s a class divide. People are so desperate or they’re inconvenienced. You’re one or the other,” said Chris Groner, 51, the city’s director of development finance.
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Though the annual inflation rate is almost back down to the Federal Reserve’s 2 percent target, prices overall remain more than 20 percent higher than they were three years ago.

Groner said exasperated residents routinely call him pleading for help that his office is not equipped to provide. Some callers cannot afford their groceries. Others are falling behind on their rent.
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But Marty Nwachukwu, 31, an organizer for Erie County United, a grassroots lobbying group, said many residents are not benefiting. She works to register people to vote and has helped elect nontraditional candidates to local offices while confronting a profound sense of inertia.

“For a majority of the working class, I would say there’s a sense of apathy. And I would even call it a depression. Feeling that nothing will change or get better no matter who they vote for,” she said.
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Other societal ills are eroding the sense of well-being that an otherwise strong economy might provide. Through July 29, there were 435 drug overdose deaths in the county, compared with 207 for the entire year in 2019, according to the county medical examiner’s office.

Seth Keiper, 41, a software engineer, recently started carrying Narcan, the over-the-counter spray used to treat opioid overdoses.

“I got the Narcan just in case. Because I’ve been just driving in Erie and you can see people, you can see the slouching when they’re walking and stuff,” Keiper said. “You never know when you might need it.”