When Joe Biden took office on the 20th of January in 2021, he boasted a net approval of 19.5 points according to RealClearPolitics and change was promised with a Democratic federal trifecta for the first time since they lost the House in 2010. Issues like student debt, poverty, and climate legislation were brought to the forefront of the American political scene, and a lot was promised to be delivered. However, after a year of the Biden Administration, a reflection on the last year would present many highs and many lows for the current president. Issues like the pandemic, Afghanistan, and inflation have all caused Biden’s approval to drop all the way to 41.2% and a net disapproval rating of 11.6 points according to FiveThirtyEight.com. Let’s take a look back at the last year in our country and more specifically the last year for Joe Biden.

The First Few Months of The Biden Administration

The beginning months for Joe Biden looked somewhat promising. The rollout of COVID-19 vaccines had begun, the American Rescue Plan passed Congress, and unemployment was showing a small, but still important improvement. Although the rate only fell by .5% in Biden’s first 6 months according to Statistica, the trend was showing a promising decline. More Americans were entering or returning to the workforce because of COVID-19 case numbers declining, which was evident throughout the New York Times case counter throughout those months. Congress was also beginning to debate many of Biden’s top legislative priorities like the Build Back Better Agenda, an Infrastructure Bill, and the For the People Act. Biden spoke about all these bills and the importance that Congress acted to pass them as quickly as possible during his first address to Congress in late April 2021. After his first address, his approval rating was still hovering around 54% according to FiveThirtyEight which was slightly lower than when he took office, but still a very minimal change.

Voting Rights Legislation Failure 

During the summer of 2021 is really when Biden’s approval took a hit. He and Congressional Democrats suffered a defeat in passing the For the People Act due to a Republican Senator filibuster in June. This was a major blow to Biden’s promise to reform elections and eliminate “dark money” in politics. In an official White House statement following the failed vote, Biden said This fight is far from over—far from over. I’ve been engaged in this work my whole career, and we are going to be ramping up our efforts to overcome again—for the people, for our democracy.”Despite the failure to pass this legislation, Senate Democrats reformed the bill into various other legislative proposals named the “Freedom to Vote Act” and the “Electoral Count Act” which both have also failed to pass the Senate as of February 7th, 2022. 

Infrastructure Package 

Aside from voting rights legislation, talks between Biden and a group of bipartisan senators about an Infrastructure plan failed in July according to Politico. However, a group of bipartisan senators began talks within just senators and were able to devise an Infrastructure bill that was able to be passed and signed into law in November of 2021, months after talks had started.

Delta Variant 

It was also during the summer that an uptick in COVID-19 cases began because of the Delta Variant. This variant was not only more contagious, but also more severe according to the CDC. The short-lived decline in cases was brought to an end by the Delta variant causing ICUs and hospitals to be full, and infecting people at much higher rate, especially those who remained unvaccinated, also according to the CDC. Although the vaccine rollout was largely considered a success by many metrics of measurement, the struggle to reach both herd immunity and convince much of the general populace to get the vaccine proved to be a major challenge for the Biden Administration. 

Afghanistan

Biden’s net approval rating dropped nearly 7 points from the beginning of June to the beginning of August according to RealClearPolitics, but still remained in the positives until the American pullout of Afghanistan. When Biden officially withdrew our nation from the Afghanistan War after over 20 years of being involved, it proved to be a major source of attacks against President Biden. From the Taliban taking back control of Aghanistan just mere days after our troops left to the murder of 13 American service members according to the New York Times. This was just days after the pullout, it was less than perfect to say the least. It was directly following this period of time that Biden’s approval rating slipped even further and he actually became more disapproved of, which has continued to hold true even today. By the beginning of fall in September, his net approval rating had fallen to -3.9 points (FiveThirtyEight). 

Inflation and Supply Chain Crisis

Following the Afghanistan pullout, the next major issues that hit Biden hard were inflation and the supply chain crisis. Due to the pandemic still being a very big issue and various worker strikes across the country, many companies fell behind in production of their products compared to past years. This along with the need to make up for lost profits, the rate of inflation rose by 7% in America in 2021. That is according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. This quickly became a source of concern and unhappiness for many Americans. By the end of 2021, his net approval rating had dipped all the way to -7 points and his approval rating sat at 43.3% (FiveThirtyEight).

What Could Be Ahead?

Currently, Biden is still trying to figure out how to get his agenda through Congress. The midterms are this coming November, and Democrats can only afford to lose a net of 5 seats in the House of Representatives and cannot lose a net of any seats in the Senate. These last few months will be majorly important for Biden, as it is likely the only time in his presidency he will have to pass his agenda. There is also going to be a Supreme Court nominee hearing in the Senate due to Stephen Breyer’s retirement. Biden has promised to nominate a black woman for the seat, and will announce his choice by the end of February 2022. He is also going to be giving a State of the Union address in March, about 11 months since his last address to Congress. His approval rating is still lower than his disapproval rating and as the year progresses, he might see a rebound.