Joseph R. Biden
National outcomes compiled July 26, 2026. Each number below is dated where it stands.
President of the United States · Democratic. What follows is context, not a grade — the national numbers during Biden’s time in office, shown next to the median across OECD member states.
Why no overall grade?
We built a presidential grade and tested it. The only honest benchmark for a whole country — its own prior trajectory — turned out to be dominated by crisis timing: whoever inherits a bad year looks good, whoever inherits a good trend looks bad, regardless of what they did. A single ranking would measure luck, not governance, and read as partisan. So we publish the data and refuse to fake a number.
Presidency · 2021–2025
Federal spending during Biden’s term
Total U.S. federal outlays for each fiscal year of Biden’s term. This is the whole federal budget — mostly Social Security, Medicare, defense, interest on the debt, and prior commitments — not money Biden personally directed. A president proposes and Congress appropriates; no single official controls it.
Nominal dollars — not adjusted for inflation. Bar lengths compare dollars of different years, so a longer bar can be higher prices rather than more spending. Do not read these bars as a real trend.
Source: OMB Historical Tables, Table 1.1 (Summary of Receipts, Outlays, and Surpluses or Deficits: 1789-present) · figures · compiled July 26, 2026. Fiscal years run Oct–Sep, so a term’s first and last fiscal year each overlap the neighbouring president’s term — marked above with the share that fell inside this term.
How the country did — term of 2021–2025
How each U.S. national outcome moved during the term, with the median across OECD member states alongside for context. This is not a grade: a president shares credit with Congress, the Fed, the states and the world, and outcomes lag policy by years. It’s what happened, not a scorecard. The sources do not all cover the whole term: rows begin between 2021 and 2022 and end between 2024 and 2025. Each row prints the years it actually covers — those years, not the term in the heading, are what the number describes.
| Outcome | Start | End | Direction | Peer median |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Unemployment rate % | 5.3 ’21 | 4.3 ’2511-month average — October 2025 was never collected (federal shutdown) | improved | 6.1 → 5.44 ’21–’25World Bank · modelled estimate · 38 countries |
| Total tax burden % of GDPmeasured 2021–2024 of the term | 26.8 ’21 | 25.6 ’24 | → | 34.4 → 35.2 ’21–’24OECD · 36–38 countries |
| Uninsured, adults 18–64 %measured 2021–2024 of the term | 12.6 ’21 | 11.6 ’24 | improved | 0 → 0 ’21–’24OECD · 37–38 countriesflat at 0 in every year 2000–2024different basis — this source puts the U.S. at 8.2 in 2024, not 11.6 |
| Adult obesity %measured 2021–2024 of the term | 33.5 ’21 | 34.2 ’24 | worsened | — |
| Teen birth rate per 1,000measured 2021–2024 of the term | 13.9 ’21 | 12.6 ’24 | improved | 6.03 → 5.04 ’21–’24World Bank · modelled estimate · 38 countries |
| Food insecurity % of householdsmeasured 2021–2024 of the term | 10.2 ’21 | 13.7 ’24 | worsened | 7.4 → 7.8 ’21–’23FAO · 37 countriesdifferent basis — this source puts the U.S. at 8.6 in 2021, not 10.2 |
| Homicide rate per 100,000measured 2021–2024 of the term | 8.2 ’21 | 6.2 ’24 | improved | 0.7 → 0.9 ’21–’23OECD · 30–36 countriesdifferent basis — this source puts the U.S. at 7.6 in 2021, not 8.2 |
| Firearm death rate per 100,000measured 2021–2024 of the term | 14.6 ’21 | 12.8 ’24 | improved | — |
| 8th-grade math (NAEP) scale scoremeasured 2022–2024 of the term · published every 2–3 years | 273.1 ’22 | 272.2 ’24 | worsened | — |
U.S. series: BLS, CDC WONDER, CDC/NCHS, NCES/NAEP, OECD, USDA ERS. Peer medians: FAO, OECD, World Bank — the median value across OECD member states, not any one country’s value, over the country count shown on each row (membership and reporting both change year to year). “Direction” marks whether the number moved the better way for that single metric; it is never summed into an overall score. “→” marks a context metric with no better direction — total tax burden is reported, not judged. The peer column carries its own years because several of those series begin later than the U.S. one. The two food-security measures are not like for like — the U.S. figure is USDA household food insecurity, the peer figure is an FAO population measure that FAO publishes only as three-year moving averages, dated here by the middle year of each window.
The Rundown
5 of the 8 outcomes with a better direction improved between 2021 and 2025, 3 worsened. Not a grade.
Food insecurity. 10.2 → 13.7% of households between 2021 and 2024 — rose.
Homicide rate. 8.2 → 6.2 per 100,000 between 2021 and 2024 — fell.
Where the window starts and stops. Terms change hands on Jan. 20, but these are calendar-year figures, so 2025 is a year Biden governed about three weeks of — and it is also the next president's starting line. The same number closes this record and opens theirs.
Not every series reaches the same year. Only unemployment rate carries a 2025 figure; the other 8 stop at 2024. Each row on the card states its own years.
Against other countries — 2 comparable outcomes. The U.S. sits ahead of the peer median on 1 of 2: unemployment rate (4.3% against a 5.44% median across 38 countries, 2025). That is a standing at the end of the term, not a move during it. The other 7 outcomes are not counted — a different definition abroad, no peer figure at the endpoint year, or no better direction to compare.
Tracked but not judged — 1 of 9. Total tax burden (reported, not judged: there is no better direction for a tax level). Counted in neither column above.
Why there is no grade: we built one, ran it, and it turned out to measure crisis timing rather than governance — whoever inherits a bad year looks good. And why there is no "if Biden were a governor" rank: for most of these outcomes the national number and the state numbers are the same measurement at two levels of aggregation, so the national figure tends to land inside the pack rather than at either end. We ran it anyway, and it could not separate the completed presidencies from one another — which makes it a description of arithmetic, not of a record. A president shares these outcomes with Congress, the Fed, the states and the world economy.