Joe Biden, having already presided on the worst economic recovery since World War II as Barack Obama’s vice president, could oversee one even worse. But unlike the fundamentally crippled economy Obama inherited, Biden came into office with every economic feature in his favor.

Thanks to Operation Warp Speed, his White House inherited the most remarkable vaccine production process in history. Because the coronavirus recession was created by preventive lockdowns and demand shocks, not underlying failures of the economy, the country seemed keen to roar back to our pre-pandemic prosperity of unusually tight labor markets and steady natural wage growth of early 2020. Love Donald Trump or hate him, there is no denying that he oversaw the obliteration of our former conception of what constituted full employment.