In what seemed like the opening shots of his re-election campaign, US president Joe Biden has highlighted record job creation under his administration and hit out at his predecessor Donald Trump.
In a speech in Philadelphia on Monday to mark Labor Day in the United States, Mr Biden also embraced the question of whether he is too old to run for the White House again, which has become an issue of concern for voters, according to some polls.
“Someone said that Biden is getting old. Guess what – the only thing that comes with age is a little bit of wisdom. I have been doing this longer than anybody and I guess I will continue to do it with your help,” he said.
Mr Biden said he was proud to be considered by experts to be the most pro-trade union president in history. He set out achievements of his administration to create jobs and protect workers’ pensions.
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He referred to Mr Trump, the leading candidate to secure the Republican Party nomination to run in 2024, not by name but as his predecessor or “the last guy”.
“When the last guy was here he looked at the United States from Park Avenue [in New York]. I look at it from Scranton, Pennsylvania. I look at it from Claymont, Delaware,” he said, in reference to the towns where he grew up.
He told the crowd at a trade union office in Philadelphia that on Labor Day the country was “celebrating jobs, good-paying jobs that you can raise a family on, union jobs”.
“I know who built this country. Wall Street did not build America. The middle class built America and unions built the middle class,” he said.
Mr Biden said nearly 13.5 million jobs had been created since he was sworn into office and there had been about 800,000 new manufacturing jobs.
“We are going through one of the greatest job creation periods in American history. That is a fact,” he said. “It wasn’t that long ago we were losing jobs in this country. In fact, the guy who held this job before me was just one of two presidents in history who left office with fewer jobs in the United States than when he got elected.”
Mr Biden said the other was Herbert Hoover, who was in the White House during the Great Depression in the 1930s.
“We are turning things around. When the last guy was here, we were shipping jobs to China. Now we are bringing jobs home from China. When the last guy was here, your pensions were at risk. We helped saved millions of pensions with your help,” he said.
Mr Biden also set out achievements in redeveloping infrastructure in the US. He said that under the Trump administration the concept of an “infrastructure week” of new announcements became a punchline, while now it was a headline. “The last guy, the great real-estate builder – he did not build a damn thing.”
In an opinion piece published in advance of Labor Day in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Mr Biden highlighted proposals by his administration to extend overtime payments to about 3.6 million Americans. He also praised unions for being good for the economy.
In his speech on Monday, he urged the US Congress to pass legislation providing greater trade union rights.
