This November’s race is shaping up to be a contest between two presidents who served consecutively and faced similar partisan advantages in Congress. These historically rare circumstances allow for a one-to-one comparison of their achievements in office.
Our editors spent months digging into the records of both Donald Trump and Joe Biden to create our Presidential Accomplishment Index (below).
How do the two administrations stack up? Read the list, which tracks 149 major accomplishments across 21 categories, and decide for yourself. We think you’ll find some surprises.
We also asked 10 journalists to investigate both presidents’ records in a specific realm and report on who got more of their respective agendas done and how. Read those essays here, and the introduction to the package here.
NATIONAL SECURITY
TRUMP
1. Withheld military aid to Ukraine: In 2019, Trump ordered nearly $400 million in congressionally mandated military aid to Ukraine be withheld, a week before asking newly elected Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in a phone call to investigate Hunter Biden’s business dealings in that country. The General Accountability Office later determined that the 55-day suspension of aid was illegal. Trump was impeached by the House over his actions but acquitted in the Senate.
2. Negotiated deal with the Taliban to end the war in Afghanistan: Cutting out the Afghan government, the United States signed the Doha Accord in early 2020, a peace deal between the United States and the Taliban that wound down U.S. actions in Afghanistan and promised the withdrawal of some troops and an eventual complete withdrawal in 2021. Trump followed through and brought home most of the troops before Biden completed the pullout in August 2021 as Afghanistan fell to the Taliban.
3. Audited the Department of Defense for the first time: Setting off a tradition that has continued under Biden, Trump’s DOD underwent its first-ever audit. The DOD failed the audit, and it has failed every time since. It is reportedly years away from a clean audit, although as a result of the increased oversight, the department has taken steps to make its spending more transparent.
4. Assassinated Qassem Soleimani: In early 2020, Trump ordered an airstrike at Baghdad International Airport that killed Qassem Soleimani, perhaps the second most powerful man in Iran and a top military officer there.
5. Created the Space Force: Signed bipartisan legislation to create the sixth branch of the armed forces, the Space Force, aimed at protecting American satellites from enemy interference.
6. Completed the territorial defeat of ISIS: Leading a coalition of Kurdish and international forces, the U.S. military ousted ISIS from its last bits of territory in Iraq and Syria, and killed its leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. The territorial defeat of ISIS in March 2019 all but wrapped up a war that began in 2014 under the Obama administration.
7. Pulled U.S. troops out of northern Syria, abandoning Kurdish fighters: Seven months after successfully ousting ISIS with the help of Kurdish militias, Trump ordered American troops out of northern Syria at the request of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, who commenced military attacks on the onetime U.S. allies, whom Erdoğan considers anti-Turkish terrorists.
BIDEN
1. Led the global alliance to support Ukraine: In the two years since Russia invaded its western neighbor, starting the largest land war in Europe since World War II, Biden has been the de facto leader of the international alliance helping to defend Ukraine. Despite growing resistance from congressional Republicans, the Biden administration has directed roughly $75 billion in assistance to Ukraine since 2022, including $23.5 billion in weapons and equipment. Biden has rallied NATO to maintain support for Ukraine, and 47 countries have directed aid to the country’s war effort. The international backing has allowed Ukraine to turn an invasion that most anticipated would be over in days into a grinding stalemate that has led Russia to lose nearly 90 percent of its active-duty troops and two-thirds of the tanks it had prior to the war.
2. Kept (so far) the Israel-Gaza war from spreading: On October 7, 2023, Hamas, an ally of Iran, slaughtered 1,163 Israelis and kidnapped 240, and Israel responded with a counteroffensive that has so far killed some 30,000 Gazans. Soon after, other Iranian proxies, including Hezbollah in Lebanon, Shiite militias in Iraq, and the Houthis of Yemen, began offensives against Israeli and Western targets. Despite some continuing attacks from Hezbollah and the Houthis, a full-scale regional war has not yet broken out, thanks to intense U.S. diplomacy backed by a steady supply of weapons to Israel and
calibrated U.S. military actions, including a precision missile strike that killed an Iraqi militant commander responsible for the deaths of three U.S. soldiers.
3. Pulled American troops out of Afghanistan: The Biden administration’s withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan returned the Taliban to power and sent President Ashraf Ghani into exile, but nevertheless ended the longest war in American history. Though 70 percent of Americans supported the policy, the chaotic nature of the withdrawal, during which 13 U.S. soldiers were killed, did permanent damage to Biden’s approval numbers. In 2022, Biden released $7 billion in frozen assets from Afghanistan’s central bank to provide relief to Afghans and compensate victims of 9/11 in the United States.
4. Killed the leaders of al-Qaeda and ISIS: In February 2022, American special operations forces carried out a raid against the ISIS leader Abu Ibrahim al-Hashimi al-Qurayshi in northwest Syria that resulted in Qurayshi detonating a suicide vest and killing himself to avoid capture. Five months later, a drone strike killed the alQaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri, formerly Osama bin Laden’s deputy, who helped orchestrate the 9/11 attacks.
5. Restricted use of armed drones: In 2022, Biden issued a new policy that limits the use of armed drones by the CIA and the Pentagon, a tactic that drastically expanded during the War on Terror. The policy, which cites the need to avoid repeating “past mistakes,” forbids notorious “signature strikes”—drone attacks in which the identities of all of the militants are not known—outside conventional war zones and requires “near certainty” that civilians will not be harmed. Under Biden, the number of lethal drone strikes carried out by American forces has plummeted compared to the Obama and Trump administrations.
6. Eliminated American stockpile of chemical weapons: Last year, workers at a military plant in Kentucky destroyed a stockpile of rockets filled with the nerve agent sarin, marking the Biden administration’s completion of the government’s decades-long effort to destroy its store of chemical weapons. Destroying the stockpile, which totaled more than 30,000 tons after the Cold War, was long supported by both parties but took more than 30 years. It moves the world closer to fulfilling the Chemical Weapons Convention treaty of 1992: All but four countries in the United Nations—North Korea, South Sudan, Egypt, and Israel—have signed and ratified the agreement to eliminate chemical weapons, though some that have, including Russia, retain undeclared stockpiles.
Click on the categories below to read the rest of the index.
DIPLOMACY
TRUMP
8. Set foot in North Korea: After becoming the first president to meet a North Korean leader in 2018, Trump in 2019 became the first president to set foot in North Korea. Trump made the unprecedented moves, along with ordering the cessation of military exercises with its ally South Korea, to convince Kim Jong Un to stop developing nuclear weapons and provocatively testing long-range missiles. North Korea continued both programs and, in 2020, unveiled a new, larger ICBM capable of carrying multiple warheads and hitting much of the United States. Trump’s diplomacy succeeded in elevating Kim’s international stature and strengthening North Korea’s diplomatic relationships with China and Russia.
9. Recognized Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and moved the U.S. embassy there: Previous administrations held off on recognizing Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and moving the embassy from Tel Aviv in order to have a bargaining chip to induce Israel to negotiate peace with the Palestinians. Trump and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson granted these two longstanding Israeli requests with no strings attached.
10. Abandoned Iran nuclear deal: In 2018, Trump withdrew the United States from an agreement with Iran negotiated in 2015 by the Obama administration that had lifted some sanctions in return for a verified freezing of Iran’s nuclear fuel enrichment program.
11. Pressured NATO leaders into providing more money: Past presidents have expressed frustration with NATO countries for not spending enough on defense. After Russia invaded Crimea in 2014, Obama persuaded NATO allies to boost spending with the aim of reaching 2 percent of GDP. But Trump ratcheted up the pressure considerably by threatening to pull the United States
out of the alliance. The NATO secretary general, Jens Stoltenberg, credited Trump for having a big impact on allies’ $100 billion increase in their defense budgets.
12. Brokered the Abraham Accords: The Trump administration mediated the Abraham Accords, the first treaty between Israel and another Arab country in 25 years. The deal normalized relations between the UAE and Israel and between Bahrain and Israel; as part of the deal, the Arab nations normalized relations with Israel. The deal also moved the Arab world further away from the Palestinians—signaling that their fates are less intertwined than they once were.
13. Brokered economic normalization between Serbia and Kosovo: Decades after the Balkan conflict, Trump and Special Envoy Richard Grenell brokered a deal between Kosovo and Serbia that included flights between
the two capitals and trade normalization. Both countries then moved their embassies to Jerusalem, Kosovo becoming the first Muslim-majority country to do so.
BIDEN
7. Strengthened and expanded the NATO alliance: In the context of Russia’s ongoing war with Ukraine, Biden promised to “defend every inch of NATO territory,” and Sweden and Finland requested to join the international alliance, bids Biden strongly supported. Finland’s application was approved last year. This summer, Biden helped secure support from Turkey for Sweden’s approval, and in March, the country finally joined the alliance. During the Trump administration, non-U.S. NATO members increased their defense spending by 4.6 percent per year on average. Under Biden, non-U.S. NATO members have increased their spending by 4.4 percent per year on average.
8. Built new alliances against China: Biden brokered the first trilateral summit between the United States’s two hitherto antagonistic allies, Japan and South Korea, leading to an expansion of a bilateral security agreement between the countries to counter China’s rising power in the region. Elsewhere in the Pacific, the administration also strengthened defense partnerships with India and Australia and forged new defense alliances with the Philippines and Papua New Guinea.
9. Banned goods made by Uyghur slave labor: Citing evidence of forced labor, Biden signed legislation early in his presidency banning imports from China’s Xinjiang region, where Beijing runs detention camps for the country’s Uyghur population. The Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act is part of the Biden administration’s effort to take a firm stance on one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises, which the administration has labeled a “genocide.”
TRADE
TRUMP
14. Withdrew from the Trans-Pacific Partnership: During the 2016 campaign, Hillary Clinton faced sharp criticism from the left and right over the Obama-signed Trans-Pacific Partnership, which she had called the “gold standard” (before disavowing it as a candidate). The deal, which limited barriers to trade between the United States and many Asian and Pacific countries, became an opportunity for Trump to demonstrate his departure from free trade orthodoxy. He followed through, pulling the United States from the deal mere days into his presidency, preventing its ratification. To replace the TPP, Trump signed narrower free trade deals with Japan and South Korea to expand access to some goods (American cars in Korea, Korean steel in the U.S.), while continuing tariffs on others (American rice in Japan, for example).
15. Brokered the United States–Mexico–Canada Agreement: Trump signed the USMCA in 2018, replacing NAFTA with a deal modestly more friendly to American manufacturing and with greater labor protections. The agreement also included environmental standards and new rules surrounding digital trade, such as the free exchange of data across borders, benefiting large American tech firms. It was ratified with the overwhelming support of both parties in both chambers of Congress.
16. Conducted a trade war with China: Seeking to reverse America’s widening trade deficit with China and punish that country for its repeated theft of U.S. intellectual property, Trump imposed large tariffs on Chinese-made solar panels, washing machines, and steel and aluminum, followed by more targeted tariffs on the country after China’s retaliation. For farmers who lost a key trading partner when China retaliated, the administration disbursed tens of billions of tax dollars in farm subsidies. The tariffs reduced America’s trade deficit with China, but because U.S. companies turned to other countries for their imports, America’s overall trade deficit grew under Trump.
17. Put tariffs on imported steel and aluminum: Trump applied a 25 percent tariff on imported steel and a 10 percent tariff on imported aluminum (except from Mexico and Canada). American employment in steel manufacturing likely rose as a result, but a greater number of jobs were lost elsewhere in the U.S. manufacturing sector due to higher steel and aluminum prices making their products less competitive, and consumers faced higher prices as well.
BIDEN
10. Broke with the “Washington consensus” and Trump’s protectionism: When Biden took office, his administration began to pursue a new vision for trade that emphasized protecting workers, the environment, national security interests, and the interests of allies and poor countries. He kept most of Trump’s China tariffs and proposed a new trade agreement with a group of Asian countries, the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework (IPEF), that would promote supply chain coordination and “sustainable and inclusive economic growth” between the countries, countering China’s primacy in the region. Likewise, he suspended Trump’s tariffs on European steel and proposed a “Green Steel Club” that would require member countries to raise emissions standards on steel and aluminum production and impose tariffs on high-emission metal production from China and elsewhere. Both trade agreements are under negotiation.
11. Signed new trade agreements with Taiwan and Japan: Last year, Biden signed the first part of a trade deal with Taiwan that simplifies customs rules, combats corruption, and helps small and midsize businesses with navigating regulations. He also signed a trade deal with Japan on electric vehicle battery materials.
12. Reformed shipping law to tame prices: Biden’s Ocean Shipping Reform Act directs the Federal Maritime Commission to investigate the business practices of ocean carriers, which are notorious for using their market power to raise fees and deny transport for exporters. The bill stops the carriers from unreasonably declining American exports, and halts retaliation by carriers against exporters and importers. The law also forces carriers to include more specific information on the detention charges they levy on shippers. The bill is the first major update to shipping law since 1998 and is an important step toward bringing down consumer prices.
13. Started a mineral supply chain alliance: Led the creation of the Minerals Security Partnership, a group of countries, including the United States and its allies, committed to challenging China’s dominance of an industry that’s vital for collective security. The group aims to diversify and stabilize critical mineral supply chains and invest in new mineral mining while promoting high environmental, social, and governance standards in the industry.
HEALTH CARE & PUBLIC HEALTH
TRUMP
18. Invoked the Defense Production Act to boost production of masks and ventilators: After disbanding the National Security Council’s pandemic unit in 2018 and failing to restock the strategic national stockpile (which Obama had used during the swine flu outbreak and failed to restock), Trump invoked the Defense Production Act to create contracts incentivizing the private sector to manufacture more than 160 million masks in a few months and 137,431 ventilators by the end of 2020.
19. Backed the rapid development of a COVID vaccine, which helped end the pandemic: Initially funded by the
CARES Act, Operation Warp Speed was an interagency program that disbursed $13 billion to various vaccine manufacturers to spur the rapid development of a vaccine for COVID, which has killed more than a million Americans. At the time the program began, Trump predicted that a vaccine would be developed by the end of the year—a subject of debate at the time, as experts doubted that it would be possible. Seven months later, in December 2020, the FDA had approved a vaccine for emergency use and the first Americans were vaccinated.
20. Required hospital price transparency on common services: In 2019, Trump signed an executive order attempting to make health care prices more transparent. The order required hospitals to disclose the rates they negotiate with insurers on 300 common services, such as X-rays, lab tests, outpatient visits, and C-sections. Hospitals are required to do this through machine-readable files and a consumer-friendly display of services. Compliance with a few specific aspects of the rule has increased greatly in the past few years, but overall compliance is stuck at 35 percent.
21. Ended most surprise out-of-network medical billing: As part of the 2020 year-end spending bill, Trump signed the No Surprises Act, limiting surprise medical billing (which can come from ER visits or out-of-network care at an in-network facility) to in-network cost-sharing levels. This has led to tens of millions fewer unanticipated medical bills.
22. Eliminated the Obamacare individual health insurance mandate: As part of the 2017 tax bill, Republicans eliminated the penalty for not having individual health insurance. Health economists predicted that the consequences would be drastic, causing a “death spiral,” and that millions of Americans would go uninsured. It turned out, however, that individuals’ behavior has not been hugely affected by the penalty, which was around $700 per adult.
23. Banned gag orders between pharmacists and customers: Trump signed two bills (the Know the Lowest Price Act and the Patient Right to Know Drug Prices Act) that prevented agreements from pharmacies and pharmacy benefit managers that included prohibitions on pharmacists’ telling customers about lower-priced drug options.
24. Undercut Obamacare: After failing to repeal Obamacare (thanks to John McCain), Trump sought to undercut it instead. Among other things, his administration halved the enrollment period in Obamacare insurance exchanges, cut subsidies to the companies offering plans on the exchanges, and wrote new rules to
offload people onto cheaper, skimpier insurance plans that had fewer requirements.
BIDEN
14. Turned around America’s COVID response: In the 10 months during which Trump oversaw America’s pandemic response, the country accounted for nearly 20 percent of the world’s deaths from the virus. By comparison, in the 10 months after Biden took office and mounted an aggressive, wartime response, America accounted for less than 12 percent of the world’s deaths. Through his COVID stimulus package, Biden orchestrated the rollout of vaccines; made it possible to administer 500 million doses in his first year in office; invoked the Defense Production Act to produce masks, personal protective equipment, and vaccines, vastly improving availability; and made America the world leader in giving COVID vaccine doses to other countries.
15. Made insurance more accessible than ever before: Under Biden, the number of Americans with health
coverage is at a record high of 92.3 percent. The spike in enrollment is the result of several of the administration’s reforms to Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act to increase access and lower costs. Biden’s COVID stimulus bill slashed premiums and out-of-pocket costs for those buying in to private plans through the ACA, subsidies the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) extended through 2025; sign-ups have jumped 80 percent since Biden took office. He also revoked Medicaid work requirements imposed by Trump; capped insulin costs at $35 a month for the 3.3 million people who rely on Medicare; and facilitated expansions of Medicaid eligibility in Missouri, Oklahoma, Louisiana, and other states. He also quadrupled the number of trained “navigators” across the country who help uninsured people sign up for Obamacare and Medicaid coverage.
16. Lowered prescription drug prices: A new rule under the IRA allows the federal government the power to negotiate the prices of certain drugs covered under Medicare. It’s an important milestone in the fight to bring down pharmaceutical costs for the 65 million people insured through the program. Last summer, the first 10 drugs selected for negotiation were announced, with the new prices set to take effect in 2026. The IRA also requires companies that raise drug prices at a rate faster than inflation to pay rebates back to Medicare, limits out-of-pocket drug spending to $2,000 per year for Medicare enrollees, and caps the monthly cost of insulin at $35 for seniors.
17. Made unprecedented investments in mental health: America’s long-standing mental health care crisis was dramatically exacerbated by the pandemic, when clinically significant symptoms of anxiety and depression tripled, according to the Census Bureau. In June 2022, Biden signed the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act, which provides about $10 billion in funding for mental health care, the largest investment in American history. The bill includes hundreds of millions of dollars in funding for community-based mental health clinics, telehealth services, and school intervention programs. Two months later, Biden signed the Public Safety Officer Support Act, which, for the first time, provides benefit coverage to first responders who experience post-traumatic stress.
18. Curbed fentanyl at the source: Negotiated with China to curtail shipments to Latin America of chemicals used to make fentanyl sold illegally in the U.S., in exchange for lifting limited trade sanctions. China also re-joined an information-sharing network about suspected traffickers. The move is expected to reduce, but not eliminate, the flow of deadly opioids.
19. Made it easier to get overdose-reversal drugs: The FDA in March 2023 approved over-the-counter purchases of Narcan nasal spray. Experts say easier access could stop more of the 100,000 fatal overdoses that occur each year.
20. Improved the country’s nursing homes: The deaths of more than 200,000 nursing home residents and staff from COVID laid bare the inequities of a poorly regulated industry. The Biden administration responded with an executive order to increase safety standards, invest in expanding the nursing home workforce, establish minimum staffing requirements, and crack down on nursing homes illegally holding family members responsible for a resident’s debt. In September, the administration proposed tightening staffing requirements further with a new rule to require a licensed nurse to be on duty in all nursing homes 24 hours a day to ensure better care.
IMMIGRATION
TRUMP
25. Barred citizens of some majority-Islamic countries from entering the U.S.: As a candidate, Trump called for a “total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States until our country’s representatives can figure out what is going on.” As president he backed away from that goal, instead banning foreign citizens of Iraq, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, and Yemen from entering the country, later adding and removing countries from the list. The travel ban did not include any of the most populous Muslim countries (Indonesia, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Egypt).
26. Prosecuted record numbers of illegal southern border crossings: Trump had long promised a crackdown on unauthorized immigration as a candidate, and he followed that up with a growing emphasis on criminal prosecutions for those who had illegally crossed the border. In 2018, the first full fiscal year of Trump’s administration, he prosecuted 99,479 allegedly unauthorized immigrants, the most in at least 20 years.
27. Built a bit of wall: Though Trump often shot himself in the foot by refusing to compromise with Senate Democrats willing to grant him wall funding, he did successfully build or update 452 miles of border wall, mostly in the form of bollard fencing. Forty-seven miles of this was new. After Congress wouldn’t grant him his exact demands, Trump successfully diverted and spent $14 billion of Pentagon, DHS, and Treasury funding on the wall, despite some court losses in the process.
28. Decimated America’s refugee allotment: Trump’s State Department slashed the refugee ceiling by almost 80 percent, reducing the number of refugees admitted annually by 67,000. When Trump took office, the annual refugee ceiling was set at 85,000, but by 2020, it had been reduced to 18,000. Unlike asylum seekers, whose claims are yet to be adjudicated, refugees have already been heavily vetted.
29. Turned away 2.8 million potential migrants: Title 42, a section of an obscure 1944 law, allowed the Trump administration to turn away migrants who crossed the border illegally for the purpose of preventing infection during the pandemic. The law was widely used and seemingly widely effective, leading the Biden administration to keep it in place for years and scramble when its expiration was imminent. By the time it sunsetted, the law had been used to turn away 2.8 million potential migrants who would have otherwise been allowed to stay while their immigration cases were pending—or forever, if they never showed up to court. However, the recidivism rate (repeat border crossing attempts) more than doubled during this time, as so many migrants were no longer detained and then released, but rather turned away with no penalty.
BIDEN
21. Reunited 700 migrant families: On his first day in office, Biden issued an executive order to create a task force to reunite families who were split up under the Trump administration policy of separating parents and children. The task force has reunited 689 families, and about 74 percent of children separated between 2017 and 2021 have now been reunited with their families.
22. Ended Trump’s Muslim ban: Biden withdrew the bar on travel to the U.S. from several majority-Muslim
countries that Trump instituted in 2017 and expanded later in his term.
23. Increased refugee admissions: The Biden administration lifted the refugee cap to 125,000 from Trump’s 18,000 and rolled out a new program that allows private citizen groups to sponsor refugees, easing bottlenecks in the refugee process.
24. Maintained inclusion of undocumented residents on the census: After Trump tried to exclude undocumented immigrants from the census totals used to apportion congressional seats, Biden killed the plan when he took office.
25. Limited deportations: The Biden administration issued guidelines that instruct ICE to mostly limit arrests and deportations to immigrants who have organized crime connections or have committed serious offenses.
This led to an early drop in deportations compared to the Trump and Obama administrations, though deportations still doubled between 2022 and 2023.
26. Expanded humanitarian parole: The Biden administration offered humanitarian parole—legal admission to the United States for a limited time—to thousands of Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans, Venezuelans, Ukrainians, and Afghans, as well as migrants who make port of entry appointments ahead of time. These programs, together with expansions of DACA and the Temporary Protected Status program, have stayed deportation for 2.3 million migrants. Though challenged in court, Biden’s humanitarian parole policy was upheld by a federal judge in March for some groups.
INFRASTRUCTURE
TRUMP
30. Authorized $6 billion in spending on new water projects: In signing the nearly unanimous America’s Water Infrastructure Act, Trump authorized $6 billion in spending on new water projects, while deauthorizing spending on water projects deemed unnecessary. These were the most substantial changes to the Safe Drinking Water Act in over 20 years, funding projects to make America’s drinking water safer and healthier through more than 30 different mandated programs.
BIDEN
27. Made historic investments in America’s infrastructure: In November 2021, Biden signed into law his $1.2 trillion Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, an unprecedented investment in bridges, roads, airports, public transportation, national broadband internet, and waterways. The funding includes $11 billion for transportation safety programs and $39 billion to modernize public transit, the largest-ever federal investment in public transit. It also allots $65 billion for the administration’s moonshot effort to bring broadband access to all homes and businesses by 2030. The bill requires that iron, steel, construction materials, and most components in manufactured products used in federally funded infrastructure projects be made in America.
MANUFACTURING
TRUMP
31. Presided over a temporary rise in manufacturing jobs: During the first two years of the Trump administration, manufacturing jobs in the U.S. increased, but at a rate no higher than during Obama’s last seven years. A study by the Federal Reserve finds that during 2018 and 2019, the manufacturing industries most exposed to tariffs experienced the lowest job growth as positive effects from import protection were offset by even bigger negative effects from retaliatory tariffs and rising input costs. Growth in manufacturing jobs slowed sharply in 2019 and then collapsed in 2020 during the pandemic.
BIDEN
28. Encouraged massive investment inside the U.S.: Tax breaks and subsidies in the CHIPS Act and Inflation Reduction Act led to $220 billion in domestic investment in car parts, computer chips, and construction materials. As of early 2024, the projects were still in their early stages, so many of the anticipated manufacturing jobs had not yet materialized.
29. Brought back comprehensive industrial policy: Reinvented economic management by creating a unified industrial policy to attempt to revive American manufacturing, shore up the global supply chain, fight monopolies, and protect national security by sourcing critical materials and technologies from Americans and allies—rather than adversaries like Russia and China.
30. Created manufacturing jobs: The Biden administration has touted the 800,000 manufacturing jobs created during his first term, though most came before the passage of his signature economic laws, CHIPS and IRA. Economists believe the increase came mostly from the recovery following the pandemic, which Biden also managed. The trend stalled in 2023, when the manufacturing industry added only about 12,000 jobs.
ENERGY & ENVIRONMENT
TRUMP
32. Withdrew from the Paris Climate Accords: Fulfilling a campaign promise, Trump announced his intention to leave the agreement in 2017, but due to the rules of the agreement, this was not allowed to take effect until November 2019, which was followed by a yearlong waiting period. The United States formally withdrew one day after the 2020 presidential election. Biden rejoined the agreement within months. During Trump’s presidency, U.S. emissions per capita were stable before declining sharply in 2020, the whole time remaining far below the nation’s 1973 peak.
33. Used executive power to hamstring the EPA and gut environmental regulation: Trump appointed Scott Pruitt, a former state attorney general who often sued the EPA, as the agency’s administrator. Pruitt withdrew the Obama-era Clean Power Plan proposal and attempted to limit the EPA’s enforcement of clean air and water standards before he was forced out over ethics scandals. The Trump administration also repealed or weakened rules limiting methane emissions from fossil fuel production, mandating fuel economy standards for vehicles, and curbing emissions of mercury and other toxic substances from power plants.
34. Funded outdoors conservation: Over some Republican opposition, Trump signed the Great American Outdoors Act, which devoted $3 billion per year to conservation projects and public land. The money has been used to fund or repair trails, campsites, bridges, wildlife dams, and many other projects on public land.
35. Reduced Bears Ears and Grand Staircase National Monuments: In shrinking Bears Ears National Monument by 85 percent and Grand Staircase by about 50 percent, Trump completed the largest rollback of federal land protection in the history of the United States. Angering Native tribes and environmentalists while exciting Utah’s Republican senators and governor, the move was reversed by President Biden.
36. Extended and expanded moratorium on offshore drilling in the eastern Gulf of Mexico: Trump issued a memorandum instructing the secretary of the interior to continue to prohibit offshore drilling off the coasts of Florida and Georgia in the Gulf of Mexico and expand the moratorium on offshore drilling to the Atlantic coasts of Florida and South Carolina from 2022 to 2032. This made industry lobbyists and executives furious.
37. Resumed and completed construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline: Delayed or halted many times by the Obama administration, the construction of the pipeline resumed and then was completed under Trump. It transports hundreds of thousands of barrels of oil daily across several midwestern states.
BIDEN
31. Made largest investments in climate: The Biden administration allocated $369 billion for climate change investment under the Inflation Reduction Act, marking the largest such climate investment in American history. Key provisions include tax credits worth up to $7,500 for households that buy electric vehicles; a tax on companies that produce methane gas emissions beyond a set threshold—the first federal tax on greenhouse gas emissions subsidies for clean energy hardware like solar panels, wind turbines, and batteries; and funds for conservation programs. The bill, which also creates tax incentives for the private sector to invest in clean energy, electric cars, and electric homes, together with the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, is projected to reduce America’s carbon emissions by 18 percent by 2030.
32. Invested in green energy: The Biden administration authorized $73 billion for green power infrastructure in the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law. The IRA also included $9 billion in rebates, along with 10 years of consumer tax credits, to encourage use of renewable and energy-efficient technology: heat pumps and rooftop solar panels, as well as high-efficiency electric heating, water heating, ventilation, and air conditioning systems.
33. Lowered gas prices: Sold off close to half the Strategic Petroleum Reserve after Russia invaded Ukraine. The move lowered the cost of gasoline by about 38 cents per gallon, according to the Treasury Department. Critics say the sale leaves the U.S. vulnerable to its adversaries, though the reserve is slowly being replenished.
34. Re-joined Paris Agreement: After Trump withdrew the U.S. from the Paris Agreement, Biden re-joined it a month after taking office. The agreement, which the U.S. helped forge in 2015, is a commitment from the 195 signatory parties (194 states plus the European Union) to take steps to limit the global temperature increase to 1.5°C above the pre-industrial era.
35. Blocked the Keystone XL Pipeline: The long-embattled pipeline that was planned to bring oil from Canada’s western tar sands to U.S. refiners was finally canceled after 13 years when Biden revoked a permit for the American stretch of the project. Biden declared that the pipeline, which would have moved up to 35 million gallons of oil a day, “would not be consistent with my administration’s economic and climate imperatives.”
36. Embraced natural gas as a “bridge” fuel: After promising as a primary candidate to curb fracking, Biden as president issued oil and gas permits at a slightly higher rate than Trump. This accelerated the country’s transition from coal to less carbon-intensive natural gas for producing electricity as a bridge to the renewable energy revolution. In 2023, natural gas was the source of 43.1 percent of electricity generation compared with 16.2 percent from coal, the highest rate for natural gas and the lowest for coal since coal’s peak in 1985. The Biden administration also dramatically increased liquid natural gas exports to Europe as supplies from Russia plummeted, a move that helped keep alive the alliance in support of Ukraine. Natural gas drilling can result in leaks of methane, which is a far more potent greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide in the short term. But in December 2023, the Biden administration finalized rules to force swift action against leaks and fine companies $900 for every metric ton of methane above a certain threshold they release into the atmosphere. The EPA estimates that this will prevent 58 million tons of methane emissions between 2024 and 2038.
37. Sharply restricted new offshore oil and gas drilling: U.S. oil output remains at a record high, and Biden received criticism from climate activists for approving major gas and oil drilling projects in West Virginia and Alaska last year. But in September, the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management announced a plan to grant just three offshore oil and gas leases—all in the Gulf of Mexico—over the next five years, the fewest since the federal permitting program began in 1980. This came after Biden ordered a 20-year ban on new oil and gas drilling projects within 10 miles of New Mexico’s Chaco Culture National Historical Park, an area Indigenous groups consider sacred, and canceled the seven remaining oil and gas leases in Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, revoking leases granted by the Trump administration.
38. Raised auto fuel economy standards: In 2022, the Biden administration set new fuel efficiency standards that require an average of 49 miles per gallon for passenger cars and light trucks in model year 2026, up from A more recent proposal, if implemented, would set the standard even higher: an average of 58 miles per gallon for passenger cars by 2032. To meet that requirement, automakers would have to make roughly two-thirds of new cars electric by that year.
39. Launched the Climate Corps: This winter, the Biden administration unlocked funding to launch its new Climate Corps, a federal program that will employ young people to work in clean energy, conservation, and climate resilience across the country.
40. Signed on to the Kigali Amendment: In 2022, Biden got bipartisan support to ratify the Kigali Amendment to the Montreal Protocol, an international agreement that requires participating countries to cut the use of hydrofluorocarbons by 80 percent by 2047. Hydrofluorocarbons are a class of chemicals used in cooling and refrigeration equipment that produce powerful greenhouse gas emissions.
LABOR & EMPLOYMENT
TRUMP
38. Undermined unionization: Created a more antilabor NLRB by appointing more management-friendly board members who ruled in a variety of cases to make it harder to unionize. The board made it more difficult for union organizers to contact workers, more difficult for workers to contact each other (over company email systems), and easier for management to change the
bargaining group to shrink the power of those workers itching for a union. The number of union elections per year fell markedly under Trump, but it has risen considerably under Biden.
BIDEN
41. Increased the minimum wage to $15 an hour for federal employees: An executive order in 2021 gave a raise to 67,000 federal employees and 300,000 contractors. Of the employees, roughly 50,000 were at the Department of Defense, where they mostly worked on military bases, many being military spouses.
42. Protected union workers’ pensions: An unprecedented federal investment of $36 billion in distressed union pension plans prevented drastic cuts to 350,000 workers’ retirement benefits. The intervention through the American Rescue Plan Act stabilized the pensions of 2 to 3 million workers overall, including thousands in the AFL-CIO and Teamsters unions.
43. Ended the rail strike: Biden and Democrats in Congress passed legislation blocking a strike at the four
largest rail companies, drawing criticism from labor advocates. But members of the administration continued negotiating behind the scenes, eventually pressuring the companies to concede more paid sick days for workers. The rail giants had previously demanded that workers request paid leave weeks in advance and didn’t allow them to call in sick on the day of a shift.
44. Became the first president to join a picket line: In September 2023, Biden cheered on United Auto Workers members striking outside a General Motors facility in Michigan, becoming the first sitting president to join a picket line. After six weeks, the strikers won record raises—25 percent above their base pay—and the UAW expanded its organizing to foreign-owned and Tesla plants.
45. Beefed up the National Labor Relations Board: The Biden administration increased funding by $25 million for the agency that protects workers’ right to organize, which had lost 39 percent of its overall staffing since 2002 and 50 percent in its field offices. The 2023 omnibus bill funding was the first budget increase for NLRB since 2014 and allowed it to better pursue Biden’s pro-labor agenda while dealing with a recent surge in cases.
46. Protected the right of federal employees to unionize: Reversed Trump-era policies that made it harder for public-sector unions to organize and to represent federal employees defending themselves against politically motivated firings. Directed the Office of Personnel Management to better inform employees of their right to join a union. Since then, union membership in the federal workforce has grown by 80,000, an increase of 20 percent.
ANTITRUST
TRUMP
39. Delivered a mixed record in prosecuting monopolies: Under Bill Barr, the Department of Justice filed a landmark antitrust case against Google for illegally monopolizing the search engine and search advertising markets. The case helped cement the fact that political leaders on both sides of the aisle intend to go after Big Tech. Often described as the most important antitrust case since U.S. v. Microsoft (1998), the case is ongoing and expected to wrap up later in 2024. Trump’s DOJ also lost important cases, however, that should have been winnable, such as in its case opposing the merger of AT&T and Time Warner. Under Trump, the DOJ also failed to oppose major corporate consolidations, as when the department waved through Disney’s
acquisition of the entertainment assets of 21st Century Fox. Though Trump’s preferred network, Fox News, was left out of the deal, the sale inflated Fox chair Rupert Murdoch’s personal fortune by billions of dollars—for which Trump offered his personal congratulations.
BIDEN
47. Made restoring competition a “whole-of-government” project: Six months after taking office, Biden
issued a whole-of-government executive order to promote competition in the economy. The order directed traditional antitrust enforcers like the Department of Justice and the Federal Trade Commission to use the full extent of their regulatory powers, but also called on 15 other government agencies to take dozens of actions to foster competition and protect consumers against monopolies. As a result, the FDA issued new rules to break up the hearing aid cartel; the Department of Agriculture cracked down on deceptive contracts in the livestock and poultry industry and retaliation against producers for exercising protected rights; the Federal Communications Commission voted to propose restoring net neutrality rules on the internet, which were repealed during the Trump administration; and more.
48. Revolutionized the Federal Trade Commission: Appointed Lina Khan, a vocal critic of monopolies, as chair, signaling a more aggressive antitrust stance that focuses on whether companies ought to become big enough to corner markets. Khan has launched numerous suits against tech companies, the most ambitious of which are ongoing—for instance, a case against Amazon’s e-retail monopoly. The FTC has blocked many other mergers by suing or threatening suit, including Nvidia’s $40 billion purchase of the chip company Arm, and is expected to finalize a rule banning noncompete clauses in April 2024. Mergers declined 40 percent in the year after Khan’s appointment, signaling a chilling effect on corporate consolidation.
49. Revitalized the Justice Department’s antitrust division: Under Assistant Attorney General Jonathan Kanter, the DOJ has brought suit against Google for allegedly monopolizing digital ad technologies; blocked a merger of Simon & Schuster and Penguin Random House that would have cut the number of major book publishers to four; nixed a merger of JetBlue and Spirit, the first successful prosecution of an airline merger in 40 years; and effectively ended the poultry industry’s farmer-exploiting “tournament system” by suing Cargill and other companies.
50. Unshackled the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau: The Biden appointee Rohit Chopra has gone after price gouging in prisons, where private companies charge exorbitant fees for phone access and financial services, and “junk fees” in banking, saving consumers an estimated $2 billion a year. The previous administration neutered the agency, refusing to enforce
many rules.
REGULATION
TRUMP
40. Eased financial regulations on small and midsize banks: By signing the Economic Growth, Regulatory Relief, and Consumer Protection Act, Trump rolled back some aspects of the Dodd-Frank law, exempting more small and midsize banks from those regulations. The bill was bipartisan, with many moderate Democrats in the House and Senate joining Republicans. The Fed later blamed the law in part for causing the rapid collapse of Silicon Valley Bank, though that connection has been disputed.
41. Embarked on an anti-regulation campaign: At the beginning of his term, Trump announced plans to eliminate two regulations for every one added to the books. Though measurements of total regulation are difficult, by the time Trump left office, the number of pages in the Code of Federal Regulations had increased by 0.8 percent, a slower rate of growth. His ineffectiveness as a deregulator was in part because a historic number of his efforts were overturned in court. However, the Trump administration did slash, among many other regulations, fair housing protections, anti-discrimination rules in health care, overtime pay thresholds, payday lending restrictions, and access to food stamps.
BIDEN
51. Modernized the government’s regulatory review: In spring of 2023, Biden issued an executive order to reform the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, the agency responsible for assessing the costs and benefits of regulations proposed by federal agencies. For years, advocates complained that corporate lobbyists exerted too much control over OIRA, impeding the implementation of important regulations. The order tweaks the methodology of OIRA’s cost-benefit analysis system to make solving public problems, not serving lobbyists, the agency’s primary concern.
52. Instituted government TikTok ban: The Biden administration prohibited use of Chinese-owned TikTok by the federal government’s nearly 4 million employees on government-owned devices. The ban is intended to address security concerns about the Chinese government’s access to user data and ability to spread disinformation. A nationwide ban on TikTok by the Trump administration was blocked by a court.
53. Got ticket sites to dump “junk fees”: After Biden called on event ticket sites to drop hidden fees in last year’s State of the Union address, Ticketmaster and SeatGeek announced that they would institute transparent pricing. Hidden junk fees increase costs for consumers in a range of industries, and pressuring companies to eliminate them has been an administration-wide project.
54. Restored restrictions on payday lenders: Biden signed a law passed by Congress that overturned rules set by the Trump administration to allow payday lenders to avoid state laws capping the interest rates they can set for borrowers. The Trump rules allowed payday lenders to duck state interest rate laws by partnering with national banks that were not subject to state laws to issue high-cost loans and gouge often low-income borrowers.
55. Added controls on microchip exports to China: In October 2022, the Biden administration announced a package of restrictions on the sale of American microchip technology to China. Squeezing China’s access to chip technology is expected to give the United States a valuable geostrategic advantage.
TAXATION
TRUMP
42. Significantly lowered the top corporate tax rate: As part of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA), Trump lowered the top corporate tax rate from 35 percent to 21 percent. The economic growth effects of the corporate tax cut are hotly debated, with estimates ranging from considerable to nearly nonexistent. The corporate tax cut led the government to collect about $233 billion less in corporate tax revenue over the next two years, contributing to a nearly $800 billion deficit in 2018 and a nearly $1 trillion deficit in 2019.
43. Lowered taxes for the vast majority of American households: As part of the TCJA, Trump lowered all federal income tax rates by one to two percentage points. More than 80 percent of Americans received a tax cut, and only 5 percent of Americans had a tax increase. Coupled with the corporate tax cut, whose benefits were almost exclusively reaped by the rich, this led the biggest change in after-tax income to occur among the very wealthy. The income tax provision did not pay for itself, causing around $100 billion less revenue to be collected by the federal government, contributing to the deficit while also putting more money in people’s pockets.
44. Capped the SALT deduction: As part of the TCJA, Trump capped the state and local tax deduction at $10,000. Above $10,000, this deduction, which allows households to deduct money from their federal taxes if they’ve already been hit by substantial state and local taxes, is used nearly exclusively by the rich, in disproportionately Democratic, high-tax states like California, New York, and New Jersey. Capping the SALT deduction was therefore extremely progressive, though it did not affect the rich who live in both low-tax municipalities and low-tax states.
45. Doubled the estate tax exemption: As part of the TCJA, Trump doubled the lifetime gift or estate tax exemption from $11 million to $22 million per couple (half that for single filers). Since the estate tax already applied only to the very richest households, this move exempted more than half of the wealthy households that pay this tax (0.12 percent of households, out of the total 0.21 percent that had faced an estate tax before the TCJA).
46. Raised the standard deduction: As part of the TCJA, Trump nearly doubled the standard deduction from $13,000 to $24,000 per couple (half that for single filers). Since this caused nearly 50 million fewer people to itemize their deductions, many feared this would lead to reduced charitable giving, but evidence has not borne that out.
BIDEN
56. Drove the creation of a global minimum tax on large corporations: In 2021, Biden led a pact endorsed by 130 nations committed to establishing corporate tax rates of at least 15 percent and eliminating loopholes that enable multinational corporations to relocate their activities to countries with lower tax rates. Japan, South Korea, the European Union, and other big economies have followed through.
57. Cracked down on tax evasion: In 2022, Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act granted $80 billion over 10 years
to the IRS to fund a crackdown on tax evasion from corporations and high-earning individuals. (This later dropped to $60 billion when Republicans cut a deal to withdraw some of the new funding.) Since the bill went into effect, the IRS has collected more than $520 million in back taxes from delinquent millionaires. The lack of funding at the IRS meant audits of people with income of more than $1 million had fallen by 80 percent compared to a decade ago.
EDUCATION
TRUMP
47. Changed Title IX regulations to grant more rights to those accused of sexual assault: Under Betsy DeVos, the Department of Education adjusted Title IX regulations for universities investigating reports of sexual harassment. The new regulations, still in effect, required colleges to have live hearings and cross-examinations. The rule also permitted schools to use a higher “clear and convincing” standard instead of a “preponderance of evidence” standard to dole out punishment, both of which are below the “beyond a reasonable doubt” standard used in criminal proceedings.
48. Ended “gainful employment” regulations while expanding salary transparency: Under the Obama administration, the Department of Education came up with a program to evaluate whether for-profit and certificate (nondegree) programs were failing to prepare students for gainful employment using debt-to-earnings ratios. Trump’s Education Department stopped enforcing the rule before scrapping it. However, the department did release salary and debt data by program/major and school for the first time, allowing students to look at which programs at which schools lead to higher or lower salaries.
49. Made it harder for people to get student debt relief when misled: Obama’s Department of Education enacted a rule in 2016, which was set to go into effect in 2017, that would have clarified a decades-old statute that guaranteed some debt relief to student borrowers who were misled or lied to by schools. Trump’s Education Department, led by Betsy DeVos, prevented the rule from going into effect, eventually replacing it with a rule that placed a much higher burden of proof on the misled and applied a three-year deadline as a statute of limitations. The deadline was struck down in court.
BIDEN
58. Invested in open and safe schools: The American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 devoted more than $122 billion to keeping schools running in the latter stages of the pandemic. The plan included grants that schools could spend on security measures against shootings and everyday violence, as well as on teachers and counselors in local districts.
59. Made college more affordable for low-income and minority students: The Biden administration raised the maximum Pell Grant award by a total of $900 in two separate measures, making for the largest two-year increase in the program’s history. Biden also secured $2 billion in funding for Title I schools, which serve low-income children, and $7.3 billion for historically Black colleges and universities.
60. Repeatedly forgave student debt: After the Supreme Court struck down an attempt by the Department of Education to forgive $430 billion in loans, Biden announced several other executive actions erasing nearly $138 billion owed by 3.9 million people. That included $9 billion for 125,000 borrowers in public service jobs, and even more under the SAVE income-based repayment program, which cancels loans after most borrowers have made 10 years’ worth of payments. The administration recently pushed forward the schedule on which SAVE participants will see their loans canceled.
61. Pioneered new methods of attacking student debt: Launched the SAVE income-based repayment plan, slashing payments for many borrowers and eventually forgiving some portion of the principal. Many participants start off with payments of $0, and the average borrower will pay back 60 cents on each dollar they owe. It has been hailed by experts as the best possible version of income-based repayment but derided by activists.
62. Cracked down on exploitative vocational programs: In fall 2023, the Department of Education finalized rules that will revoke federal funding for vocational programs that burden students with debt while failing to prepare them for successful careers. Certificate programs will lose funding if their graduates pay too high a percentage of their income in debt service, or if graduates’ income is too low compared to statewide averages. The rules are a tougher version of Obama-era regulations that Trump rescinded.
COURTS
TRUMP
50. Appointed three justices to the Supreme Court: Trump appointed Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett, cementing a conservative supermajority and appointing one more justice than Obama, who was president for twice as long. The conservatives have been prolific and influential, overturning Roe v. Wade, guaranteeing a right to carry a pistol in public in all 50 states, eroding the separation of church and state, and ending affirmative action in higher education.
51. Stacked the lower federal judiciary: In just one term, Trump appointed 54 judges to the U.S. Courts of Appeal, only one fewer than Obama did in his two terms. This flipped three of the 13 appeals courts to a Republican-appointed majority. Including district court appointments, Trump left office having appointed 28 percent of active judges. Harry Reid had eliminated the filibuster for all presidential appointments (except for Supreme Court justices) in 2013, making the stacking of the federal judiciary easy as long as the presidency and Senate are controlled by the same party.
BIDEN
63. Appointed the first Black woman Supreme Court justice: Ketanji Brown Jackson has proved influential with her background as a criminal justice lawyer —a specialty not often represented on the Court—and her rigorous textualism, which forces the conservatives to acknowledge and sometimes bend to her arguments. Chief Justice John Roberts echoed her reasoning in a surprise 2023 decision to uphold what’s left of the Voting Rights Act, and the prior year, Jackson’s originalist arguments convinced four conservatives to join her for a 7–2 decision defending Medicaid from a challenge by a group of red states.
64. Countered Trump’s takeover of the federal courts: Biden appointed 165 federal judges in his first three years, on track to surpass Obama and not far behind Trump, who had more vacancies when he entered office. Biden also flipped the Second Circuit (which covers Connecticut, Vermont, and New York) back from a Republican-appointed majority. Biden’s judges are more diverse than other presidents’, but they also lack experience in administration priorities like antitrust. Meanwhile, Biden has had trouble placing judges in red states thanks to the Senate’s “blue slip” rule, which allows individual senators to block home state appointments.
CRIME
TRUMP
52. Used law enforcement and military to quell protests: In 2020, as riots began in the aftermath of the murder of George Floyd by police, Trump considered invoking the Insurrection Act against Black Lives Matter protesters and deployed federal forces to places like Portland, Oregon. Local leaders decried the move to send agents in unmarked cars and uniforms and called on them to go home. Shortly after Trump declared his intention to use the military to quell BLM protests in a speech that summer, police and National Guard members violently cleared Lafayette Square in Washington, D.C., so he could walk from the White House to a nearby church to pose for a photo.
53. Dispatched federal law enforcement agents to help local cops find violent criminals: After the violent crime wave started to take off in 2020, Trump’s Department of Justice launched Operation Legend (named after a murdered four-year-old boy), sending federal law enforcement to clamp down on violent crime in mostly midwestern cities. The DOJ said that thousands were arrested (including nearly 500 for homicide) under the program. Many city governments did not welcome the federal agents, however, and accused the Trump administration of rebranding an existing federal-local cooperation program and inflating its arrest numbers.
54. Increased fines on robocallers: As part of the bipartisan TRACED Act that Trump signed, increased fines were levied on robocallers. The law also enabled phone companies to make sure that the caller ID matched the actual phone number on a call. After the bill went into effect in late December 2019, there was likely a sizable decrease in the number of robocalls Americans received over the next two years.
55. Signed the bipartisan First Step Act: Called “the most substantial criminal justice reform legislation in a generation” by the Brennan Center, the First Step Act retroactively shortened federal prison sentences for crack cocaine, expanded the ability of judges to sentence below statutory minimums, and increased the opportunities of prisoners seeking rehabilitative programming. Beneficiaries of the act had far lower recidivism than most federal inmates.
BIDEN
65. Hired more police officers: Following the crime wave of 2020, Biden’s American Rescue Plan allowed states and localities to invest $15 billion in hiring police officers and expanding community violence intervention programs. Under Trump, murder rates rose 30 percent between 2019 and 2020, the largest jump since 1905. That trend has reversed under Biden: Though most Americans perceive crime to be rising, murders dropped 6 percent between 2021 and 2022 across the country and another 12 percent in America’s 200 largest cities in 2023, one of the largest one-year decreases in history.
67. Reformed policing: Two years after George Floyd was murdered by police, sparking nationwide protests against police brutality, Biden issued an executive order to make policing safer and more accountable. The order established a national registry of police officers who are fired for misconduct, required all federal law enforcement officers to wear body cameras, banned chokeholds, restricted no-knock police entries, and tightened prohibitions on federal agencies’ transfer of military-style equipment to local police departments.
SOCIAL WELFARE
TRUMP
56. Doubled the child tax credit and expanded eligibility: Deferring to less libertarian voices in the GOP, Republicans included provisions in the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act that doubled the child tax credit to $2,000 per dependent, added another $500 credit for older children and other dependents, and increased the income threshold for the phaseout from $110,000 to $400,000 for couples, making tens of millions more
households eligible for the full credit. This moved 550,000 children above the poverty line and put more than $66 billion into the pockets of parents making less than $400,000. At the same time, the TCJA took away the child tax credit from 1 million children without Social Security numbers—mostly Dreamers. They also failed to make the tax credit refundable, meaning that families with such low income that they owe little to nothing in taxes continued to not receive the benefit.
57. Sent stimulus checks, twice: As part of the CARES Act, the IRS distributed $1,200 per income tax filer (double if jointly filing) and $500 per child to hundreds of millions of Americans making under $75,000 per year (or $150,000 if joint filers). Then, using the appropriations bill, the IRS distributed another $600 per income tax filer (double if jointly filing) and $600 per child as part of a second round of pandemic aid/stimulus funding. In total, they doled out $413 billion to Americans suffering from the deep recession caused by the pandemic and associated lockdowns.
58. Supplemented unemployment checks by $600 per week: As part of the CARES Act, Trump enacted the Federal Pandemic Unemployment Compensation program, which distributed an additional $600 per week (the equivalent of a full-time $15/hour job) to the unemployed from March to July 2020, and then by $300 per week for much of the time afterward, totaling hundreds of billions of dollars distributed to the victims of the largest layoffs and second highest unemployment level in American history. These expanded unemployment funds saved nearly 5 million people (more than a million of whom were children) from poverty.
59. Delivered paid leave to most federal workers: Trump signed the Federal Employee Paid Leave Act as part of the National Defense Authorization Act signed in 2019, giving up to 12 weeks of paid time off for the birth, adoption, or foster placement of a new child to most federal workers (some federal employees, such as those at the Federal Aviation Administration and U.S. Postal Service, are excluded from civil service laws and thus not included under the rule). The federal government is the biggest employer in America with more than 2.1 million employees, and the total value of the benefit is about $1 billion a year. At the time, only 12 percent of private-sector employees had paid family leave.
BIDEN
67. Lifted millions of children out of poverty: Expanded the child tax credit through the American Rescue Plan Act, cutting child poverty by half, until the provision expired at the end of 2021. A boost to food stamps and protections that stopped people from being removed from Medicaid rolls expired in spring and summer 2023. Poverty levels have since risen, and Congress has been debating a renewal of the credit.
68. Gave Americans a leg up during the pandemic: Sent checks of $1,400 per person, a $300-a-week unemployment supplement, and a $3,600-a-year tax credit for families with children under the age of six through ARPA. Research indicates that people spent their stimulus checks on necessities like housing and food, though some economists argue that it contributed to inflation.
69. Discouraged local zoning unfriendly to affordable housing: The bipartisan infrastructure law offered up to $6 billion in Department of Transportation funding as an incentive to municipalities to eliminate restrictive zoning and land use policy. Lack of housing stock drives up rents, contributes to homelessness, and is associated with wider inflationary price pressure.
SOCIAL ISSUES
TRUMP
60. Overturned Roe v. Wade: Fulfilling a 50-year-old conservative priority, Trump’s three appointed Supreme Court justices made up the decisive votes in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, which overturned the right to abortion up until viability. Many Republican-controlled states subsequently passed laws banning abortion under virtually any circumstances (14 with total bans, two with six-week bans), and exceptions have proved extremely difficult to come by.
61. Ended affirmative action in college admissions: In 2023, the conservative Supreme Court supermajority overturned 45 years of precedent by making race-based admissions policies illegal for civilian colleges and universities, though it left an exception for military academies.
62. Stripped accommodations for new transgender military service members: Though those who received a gender dysphoria diagnosis prior to April 2019 were exempted from the policy, the Trump administration required that all currently serving troops who received a diagnosis after that date serve according to their natal sex as well as be barred from seeking transition-related medical care.
BIDEN
70. Lifted Trump’s ban on new transgender service members requiring transition care: An executive order in Biden’s first few days revoked the previous administration’s policy, restoring the trans-friendly stance first instituted by Barack Obama in 2016.
71. Made Juneteenth a federal holiday: In 2021, Biden signed widely bipartisan legislation to enshrine June 19 as the federal holiday commemorating the end of slavery. The holiday had long been celebrated unofficially by the Black community.
72. Protected same-sex marriage: Biden signed the Respect for Marriage Act, which requires states to recognize marriages granted by other states, though it doesn’t mandate that all states perform same-sex unions, as the 2015 Obergefell decision does. Some Supreme Court justices, including Clarence Thomas, have expressed a desire to overturn the landmark gay marriage ruling.
73. Expanded LGBTQ housing protections: Extended protections in the Fair Housing Act to LGBTQ Americans, who weren’t included in the 1968 law that allows the federal government to investigate reports of housing discrimination.
74. Made it easier to sue workplace harassers: Signed the Ending Forced Arbitration of Sexual Assault and
Sexual Harassment Act of 2021, which prohibits employers from forcing workers into arbitration in order to keep claims of sexual assault out of court. The law also has made it easier to take other workplace complaints out of arbitration when they’re paired with sexual misconduct.
75. Prohibited workplace discrimination over pregnancy: Signed the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act, which requires that employers accommodate pregnant workers with the ability to sit down, receive closer parking, have more flexible hours, be excused from strenuous activities, and take time off to recover from childbirth. It was already illegal to fire an employee because of a pregnancy.
STATE & LOCAL AID
TRUMP
63. Set aside $150 billion in state and local government aid: As part of the CARES Act, $150 billion was disbursed to state and local governments. This led many cities and states to run a surplus, lower taxes, and spend the money on shelters, COVID testing, food banks, schools, departments of health, small businesses, summer camps, rent relief, and so on. The vast majority of the money went to state governments rather than municipal governments, and small towns were left out, instead having to apply to states for aid.
BIDEN
76. Empowered cities and towns with direct aid: When Biden took office, he used his COVID stimulus bill, the American Rescue Plan, to send $130 billion in aid directly to localities of all sizes, which was 59 percent as much as he sent to state governments ($220 billion). Trump’s COVID relief package, by comparison, disbursed $29 billion directly to municipalities, only 26 percent as much as it directed to states ($110 billion). Likewise, Biden’s Bipartisan Infrastructure Law made $196 billion—a third of all surface transportation funding—available to municipalities to apply for. Historically, nearly all federal stimulus, disaster relief, and infrastructure spending is directed to state governments, which have enjoyed almost complete discretion over how funds are directed. In the 21st century, Republican-led states have often used this authority to withhold funding for municipal priorities like mass transit and environmental initiatives.
VETERANS
TRUMP
64. Outsourced more VA health care to private providers: By signing the bipartisan VA MISSION Act, Trump sought to reduce wait times at VA hospitals and provide veterans with more choices for health care by allowing so-called community care. Outsourced care now consumes about a third of the VA’s clinical care budget, much of it due to private-sector over-billing and utilization of unnecessary procedures.
65. Stripped employment protections for doctors, nurses, and other workers at the VA: Trump signed the bipartisan Department of Veterans Affairs Accountability and Whistleblower Protection Act of 2017 to streamline the firing and demotion of underperforming or misconducting VA employees. The bill was signed three years after the Obama-era VA wait times scandal, in which some employees held a secret waiting list and lied to regulators about wait times. The VA employees union would later sue for thousands of wrongful terminations under the law, which was settled.
BIDEN
77. Signed legislation to help veterans who were exposed to burn pits and other toxins: The 2022 PACT Act dedicates $280 billion over the next decade in health care and disability pay for former soldiers exposed to burn pits—open-air pits where the military burned chemicals and other toxic waste. More than a million claims have already been filed under the law.
78. Protected union jobs at the VA: Biden’s Veterans Affairs chief, Denis McDonough, renegotiated union
contracts, rolling over a previous agreement in hopes of maintaining staffing levels. The previous administration had sought to outsource much of those services to the private sector. McDonough also settled a major class action lawsuit over the allegedly unfair dismissals of 5,000 VA employees under Trump, who passed a law making it easier to fire workers. Some, but not all, will be allowed to return to work.
GUNS
TRUMP
66. Used regulations to widen firearm access: Trump’s administration narrowed the interpretation of “fugitives from justice,” who are prevented from buying guns, granting gun-purchasing rights to those facing an arrest warrant who had neither fled their state to avoid prosecution nor were likely to be imminently prosecuted. The administration also changed regulations to disallow the Social Security Administration from putting its list of 75,000 people eligible for mental disability payments into the national background check database of people forbidden from buying guns.
67. Banned bump stock gun attachments through an ATF rule change: Just over a year after the Las Vegas mass shooting, the deadliest in American history with a death toll of 60 (and nearly 900 injuries), Trump’s ATF moved unilaterally to ban bump stocks, which the shooter had attached to his gun. Congress had failed to act, and the ATF rule change now faces an uncertain fate before the Supreme Court.
BIDEN
79. Signed the first major gun safety legislation in 30 years: The Bipartisan Safer Communities Act, a cross-party compromise after the 2022 Uvalde school shooting, included incentives for states to pass so-called red flag laws that might have stopped the killer. It also expanded background checks and laws preventing people convicted of domestic abuse from owning a gun—but it doesn’t include some items on Biden’s wish list, like universal background checks and a renewed assault weapons ban.
80. Signed a series of gun safety executive orders: To combat gun violence, the Biden administration cracked down on “ghost” guns (those assembled from kits) both by requiring that they are marked with traceable serial numbers and by tightening rules about background checks on kit purchasers. Biden also instituted a “zero tolerance” policy for violations of the law from federally licensed gun dealers; required background checks to be conducted before firearm purchases; secured commitments from cities and states to spend more than $6.5 billion in stimulus funding on community violence prevention programs; and ordered new research on how guns are trafficked and used in crimes. According to John Feinblatt, president of Everytown for Gun Safety, “President Biden has led the strongest gun safety administration in history.”
CANNABIS
TRUMP
68. Legalized hemp and CBD: As part of the 2018 farm bill, the Trump administration legalized low-THC hemp products, effectively legalizing cannabidiol (CBD) in all 50 states. This has allowed hemp farmers to be afforded the same protections that farmers of other crops have long received. The CBD market, which ranges from gummies to skin creams to bath bombs, grew 600 percent in 2019 as a result.
BIDEN
81. Called off the federal war on marijuana: Through executive order, Biden issued blanket pardons for federal simple marijuana possession, covering thousands of offenders. He also initiated a process to review the classification of cannabis among Schedule I drugs like heroin, which have “no currently accepted medical use.”
