What's next for President Biden and the economy

Yahoo Finance Video
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Yahoo Finance's Rick Newman discusses what to expect next from President Biden's administration and the economy in 2022.

Video Transcript

RICK NEWMAN: We did get something he can brag about on the economy. We got a really strong GDP growth showing for 2021. That was expected, strongest GDP growth since the 1980s. But this is not going to last very long. I think the important thing for President Biden now is to know he's got a couple of tough months coming.

We're going to see a major slowdown because of Omicron. It's probably going to show up in the job numbers for January and for February as well. We could even see the economy lose some jobs. Inflation, of course, is the main thing that's on everybody's mind at 7%. And GDP growth, which was great in the fourth quarter of 2021, is going to slow down by a lot in 2022, probably less than 2%.

So Biden is going to have some tough sledding for the next couple of months. Maybe things are going to get better when March, April, May get here, but consumers are probably going to be in a pretty foul mood for a little while here.

ADAM SHAPIRO: We hear you loud and clear. And, you know, then there was the whole event in Pittsburgh today with infrastructure. And of course, there was the bridge that fell last night. Fortunately, nobody killed, but people were injured, but not life threatening. You know, what's going to happen next? Can-- well, what's next? Does the Biden administration use infrastructure to their advantage?

RICK NEWMAN: Well, Biden was talking about two things basically in Pittsburgh. One is the infrastructure bill that he signed in November. That's a win for the Biden administration. And that money is going to start going to states and cities basically now, so it's going to be flowing in 2022 and years to follow. So Biden's going to be talking about that a lot. That is a win for him. He should be talking about that.

Biden also in Pittsburgh was kind of giving a stump speech for some of the elements of his Build Back Better program, which, of course, Congress has not passed and it's not clear if they ever will pass. So Biden was making the case for the environmental provisions of the green energy investments in that legislation, and also for help with child care and other things like that. So he's trying to generate a little bit of support for that Build Back Better bill, but that has been a turkey so far in Congress. And I don't think anybody knows whether they're likely to pass that in 2022.