Biden meets with business, labor leaders to highlight inflation progress

By Jeremy Diamond and Arlette Saenz, CNN

President Joe Biden is meeting with business executives and labor leaders to highlight recent progress in combating inflation and steadying the economy, a White House official told CNN.

Biden is sitting down in person and virtually with the top executives of such companies as Ford, Kaiser Permanente and Carrier as well as the presidents of the Service Employees International Union and United Food and Commercial Workers.

The meeting is designed to call attention to recent economic progress and seek out ideas to bring inflation down further, the official said.

Biden was scheduled to be joined by Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen and his top economic adviser Brian Deese.

“Thanks to the President’s economic plan, the U.S. economy has created 10 million jobs—including 700,000 manufacturing jobs—since the start of the Biden-Harris Administration,” a White House official said. “We are seeing initial signs that inflation is coming down: the October Consumer Price Index showed moderation in inflation, as did the October Producer Price Index released this week. Gas prices continue to decline, with gas prices down in all 50 states this week.”

Biden is also expected to tout key provisions of the Inflation Reduction Act that he signed into law last summer, which will take effect at the beginning of next year.

The law’s provisions capping monthly insulin co-pays at $35 per prescription for seniors on Medicare and making certain vaccines free for Medicare Part D recipients kick in on January 1, 2023.

The law also extended tax credits for those purchasing health insurance through Affordable Care Act marketplaces that were set to expire at the end of this year.

Biden’s sit-down with the business and labor executives comes two days after he returned from a week-long trip to several global conferences. It will mark his first opportunity to highlight recent signs that inflation may be cooling and tout his administration’s efforts on that front.

The Consumer Price Index slowed to a 7.7% annual gain last month, a slower pace than the 8% that economists had been expecting.

The meeting also comes on the heels of the midterm election results, in which Democrats held onto their Senate majority and lost control of the House, but by a far slimmer margin than expected.

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