The CHIPS Act and Inflation Reduction Act — 2 years on

It’s just about two years since President Joe Biden signed the CHIPS and Science Act — which focuses on semiconductor factories in the U.S., reshoring and more. One week after that, we’ll hit the two-year anniversary of the big clean energy and climate legislation: the Inflation Reduction Act.

What have been some of the outcomes of Congress and the president getting this legislation up and running? The White House is among those crunching the numbers now that there’s been some time between getting the law passed and getting the funding out the door.

Heather Boushey is a member of the White House’s Council of Economic Advisers. She’s also chief economist of the Invest in America cabinet. She joined “Marketplace Morning Report” host David Brancaccio, and the following is an edited transcript of their conversation.

David Brancaccio: These giant programs, two years later — people would expect that they’re implemented, that their provisions are out in the world doing their thing. Would you say that is the case?

Heather Boushey: Well, there is so much evidence that a lot has been implemented. We’ve now seen announcements of $900 billion of private sector investment all across the country — so in new biotechnologies, in chips factories across the country, in clean energy. But those are just announcements. What we’ve actually also seen — which is just as, if not more exciting to the economist in me — is that we’ve seen that that has been followed up by record-breaking investments in the construction of new manufacturing structures all across the country. So we’re actually seeing shovels in the ground, investment happening. And I’ve had the fortune of being able to travel to many of these places across the country, and to see these investments in action.

Brancaccio: I’d seen that figure put out by the White House — $900 billion in private sector investment. And I was curious, I mean, has it led to actual jobs? But if you said there are shovels in the ground, I mean, someone’s holding the shovel.

Boushey: Certainly. We’re actually seeing record numbers of people employed in construction. And our internal estimates are that it takes about six to eight quarters for the manufacturing jobs to show up. So now that we’ve seen six quarters of that new investment, we expect those manufacturing jobs to start showing up in these new facilities. And, of course, we saw a very sharp uptick in manufacturing as we started to recover from the pandemic. And under the president’s and vice president’s watch, we’ve seen 800,000 manufacturing jobs created.

Brancaccio: And this has been part of your job, too — making the case for the changes the administration has been trying to carry out. You must feel sometimes that it’s been rolling a rock uphill, that people aren’t feeling what it is your statistics are showing.

Boushey: You know, David, this is one of the things that gets me: I look at the national statistics, and I see an economy that recovered faster from a deep recession than any recovery in my professional career and in decades. And yet, we’ve seen some frustration with the economy in the national media. And here’s the thing that I’ve seen as I’ve traveled the country: The people that I’m meeting with are so excited about the investments in their communities because of the Invest in America agenda. They’re able to improve their airport, which means economic growth for their communities. They’ve been able to make investments in clean energy. So what I’ve been seeing as I’ve been talking to people is that real, palpable sense of excitement, and also an understanding of all the hard work that is in front of these communities to really make the most of this opportunity.

Brancaccio: Forecasts are for there to be more names on payrolls yet again when the July data comes out on Friday, but not as many jobs created as a month earlier. The job market isn’t as strong as it was. Are you OK with that in the fight against inflation?

Boushey: Well, listen, this has been an historic jobs recovery. And we saw jobs come back faster than any previous recovery, faster than expected. And we always knew — and in fact the president put out an op-ed a number of years ago about how, as the recovery started to stabilize, we would see the pace of jobs come back down to a sustainable pace. And that’s exactly what we’ve seen here.