Addressing his first divided Congress, Biden says 'the soul of this nation is strong'

Biden touted his legislative accomplishments during his State of the Union address by linking what he called a growing economy and successful jobs report to his agenda.

“Now we’re coming back because we came together to pass the bipartisan infrastructure law, the largest investment in infrastructure since President [Dwight] Eisenhower’s interstate highway system,” Biden said in his speech.

“Jobs are coming back, pride is coming back, because of the choices we made in the last two years. This is a blue-collar blueprint to rebuild America and make a real difference in your lives," he argued.

Biden said that he ran to be president so that he might “fundamentally change things” and make sure the economy works for everyone.

“For decades, the middle class was hollowed out,” Biden said, painting a picture of a thriving, manufacturing-focused America before jobs moved overseas and factories shut down.

“So, let’s look at the results. Unemployment rate at 3.4%, a 50-year low. Near record low unemployment for Black and Hispanic workers … We’ve already created 800,000 good-paying manufacturing jobs, the fastest growth in 40 years.”

Biden painted a rosy picture of historically high inflation, which has been slowing for months after becoming a major source of political and economic pain. But Biden attributed it to the impacts of COVID-19 and Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

“Inflation has been a global problem because of the pandemic that disrupted supply chains and Putin’s war that disrupted energy and food supplies,” he said. “We have more to do. But here at home, inflation is coming down.”

So far in his speech, Biden has been touting bills passed under his watch, such as the Inflation Reduction Act and the bipartisan infrastructure bill. He may feel he needs to reintroduce the country to them because Americans largely don’t think he’s gotten much done during his administration. According to a recent ABC News/Washington Post poll, only 36% of Americans believe he has accomplished a great deal or a good amount, and 62% believe he has accomplished only a little or nothing.

Biden is likely also betting that that public will like what they hear about his accomplishments, and he might be right: Data for Progress recently found that, after Americans were read a short description of the Inflation Reduction Act, 68% of likely voters said they supported it.

-FiveThirtyEight’s Nathaniel Rakich

President Biden opened his speech by touting the country's economic strength. He got a big boost from Friday's jobs report, which showed that about half a million jobs were added to the economy in January, which was much higher than analysts predicted. There are other indicators that look good for Biden, too -- in December, inflation slowedfor the sixth straight month, ebbing from historic highs that had become a source of major criticism of him and his administration.

But the strong job growth under Biden has to be taken in context. Tens of millions of Americans lost their jobs in the first few months of the COVID-19 pandemic, and the labor market was still recovering when Biden took office in January 2021. And although the unemployment rate is at its lowest point in decades, as Biden also noted, Americans don't necessarily think the economy is improving. According to polling by Civiqs, confidence in the economy has been low since the COVID-19 pandemic hit in 2020, and although perspectives on the economy outlook are a little rosier than they were over the summer, the share of Americans who say that the economic outlook is fairly or very bad is still high.

And Biden's own Federal Reserve chairman, Jerome Powell, said earlier Tuesday that while inflation is starting to ease, if the labor market remains strong, more interest rate hikes could be coming. He warned that there could be more economic pain. "There's been an expectation that it'll go away quickly and painlessly," Powell said. "I don't think that's at all guaranteed."

-FiveThirtyEight's Amelia Thomson-DeVeaux

Biden touted his leadership despite a divided Congress on issues such as Ukraine and his "once-in-a-generation" infrastructure law.

"You know, we're often told that Democrats and Republicans can’t work together," he said. "But over these past two years, we proved the cynics and the naysayers wrong."

"Yes, we disagreed plenty. And yes, there were times when Democrats had to go it alone. But time and again, Democrats and Republicans came together," he continued.

Biden -- in a theme of the evening -- brushed aside his administration's challenges to focus on bipartisanship, saying he signed more than 300 bipartisan laws since becoming president, from reauthorizing the Violence Against Women Act to the Electoral Count Reform Act to the Respect for Marriage Act.

"To my Republican friends, if we could work together in the last Congress, there is no reason we can't work together in this new Congress," he said.