Joe Biden, U.S. President: “Before I took office, there was a lot of folks out there, a lot of folks out there making some pretty bold predictions about how things would turn out. You might remember some of the predictions: that if if I became president, we’d quote see a depression the likes of which we’ve never seen end of quote. Well, it’s true that the economy was sputtering before I got here, adding only 60,000 jobs per month for three months before I was sworn in. But now, six months later, we’ve changed that. We’ve gone from 60,000 jobs per month to 60,000 jobs every three days, more than 600,000 jobs per month since I took office. More than three million new jobs all told. Another prediction, that is my favorite one I must add, is that if I got elected, I’d bring the end to capitalism. I never understood that one, but we’ve heard, we’ve heard an awful lot. Well, in six months into my administration, the U.S. economy has experienced the highest economic growth rate in nearly 40 years. And we know, we’ve and now we knew that we needed to launch a wartime effort to get the Americans vaccinated and pass the powerful American Rescue Plan. We did both those things. And now the forecasters have doubled their projections for growth this year in the economy to seven percent or higher. In fact, the U.S. is the only developed country in the world where growth projections today are stronger than they were before the pandemic hit. Folks, it turns out capitalism is alive and very well. We’re making serious progress to ensure that it works the way it’s supposed to work for the good of the American people. So for all those predictions of doom and gloom, six months in, here’s where we stand. Record growth, record job creation, workers getting hard earned breaks. Look, we brought this economy back from the brink and we designed our strategy not only to provide for a temporary boost, but to lay the foundation for a long term boom. Despite that progress, we can not afford to be complacent. We know that our economic recovery hinges on getting the pandemic under control. You know, and and by fully vaccinating 160 million Americans, 80 % of our seniors, we fundamentally change the course of the pandemic from one that threatens all Americans to a disease that has the most severe impacts only on the unvaccinated people in the country. But we can’t let up especially since and because of the Delta variant, which is more transmissible, more  transmissible and more dangerous. Unfortunately, cases are now rising, particularly in communities with very low vaccination rates. And the data shows that most of the price increases we’ve seen are were expected and are expected to be temporary. I want to be clear. My administration understands that if we were to ever experience unchecked inflation over the long term, that would pose a real challenge to our economy. So, while we’re confident that isn’t what we’re seeing today, we’re going to remain vigilant about any response that is needed.”