WASHINGTON � President Joe Biden exudes confidence as the next race for the White House approaches.
During last month's State of the Union address, he lured unruly Republicans into agreeing with him that federal entitlements should be protected. He intensified travel outside Washington, trumpeting job creation in Wisconsin and steep federal health care spending to Florida seniors while touting a trillion-dollar public works package that he says can do everything from revitalizing Baltimore's port to easing train tunnel congestion under the Hudson River.
FILE - President Joe Biden delivers his State of the Union address to a joint session of Congress at the Capitol, Feb. 7, 2023, in Washington. Biden exudes confidence as the next race for the White House approaches.(AP Photo/Alex Brandon, File)
By the numbers: President Biden at the two-year mark
6.5% annual inflation
Updated
6.5%: Annual inflation remains stubbornly high, but is slowly falling after reaching a four-decade high of 9.1% in June.
10.46 million job vacancies
Updated
10.46 million: The latest Labor Department figures show more than 10 million job vacancies in the U.S., nearly 1.8 jobs for every unemployed person. Jobless rate at 3.5%, matching a 53-year low. Zero recessions � so far.
$31.38 trillion national debt
Updated
$31.38 trillion: The federal debt stood at $27.6 trillion when Biden took office.
$24.2 billion in security aid to Ukraine
Updated
$24.2 billion: The amount of U.S. security assistance committed to Ukraine since the Russian invasion nearly 11 months ago.
38: The number of High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems, known as HIMARS, committed to send to Ukraine. A gamechanger, allowing Ukrainian forces to fire at Russian targets from far away, then drive away before artillery can target them.
2.38 million migrants stopped at border
Updated
2.38 million: For the 12 months ending Sept. 30, 2022, Customs and Border Protection reported stopping migrants at the U.S. border nearly 2.4 million times, a record surge driven by sharp increases in Venezuelans, Cubans and Nicaraguans. The previous high was 1.66 million in 2021.
97 federal judges confirmed
Updated
97: Confirmation of Biden's picks to the federal bench, including Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, outpacing the president's two immediate predecessors.
89 pardons and commutations
Updated
89: The president has granted nine pardons and 80 commutations, far more than any of his recent predecessors at this point. Donald Trump had granted 11 by this time, George W. Bush seven. Barack Obama didn't take any clemency action in his first two years.
$3.36 average gas price
Updated
$3.36: The average price per gallon that American motorists are paying at the pump has fallen since peaking at $5.02 per gallon in June. Motorists were paying a $2.39 per gallon average the week Biden took office.
666 million vaccines administered
Updated
666 million: The number of COVID-19 vaccines administered to Americans under Biden. Twenty million had received the jab before Biden took office. The vaccine was not approved until late in Trump's presidency.
15.9%: The percentage of Americans 5 and older who have gotten updated bivalent vaccine.
680,000 COVID-19 deaths
Updated
680,000: The recorded death toll from the coronavirus pandemic during Biden's term. The worst pandemic in more than a century had already taken more than 400,000 American lives by Biden's inauguration and has taken 1.1 million total since March 2020.
36 states visited
Updated
36: Biden has spread his travel across 36 states (shown here in Pennsylvania) to promote his agenda, but still needs to cross off Arkansas, Indiana, Kansas, Maine, Mississippi, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, South Dakota, Tennessee, Utah, Vermont, West Virginia and Wyoming.
197 days in Delaware
Updated
197: There's no place like home. The president spent all or part of 197 days in his home state of Delaware, traveling most weekends to either his home near Wilmington or his vacation home at Rehoboth Beach, according to an AP tally. Beyond the weekend visits, he's also made quick trips for funerals, policy events and to cast his ballot in a Democratic primary.
6 chats with Xi
Updated
6: Biden has spoken with Chinese President Xi Jinping a half-dozen times since the start of his term. All but one of those were phone or video calls. They met in person on the sidelines of a summit in Indonesia in November.
22: The minimum number of times that Biden has publicly lapsed into a nostalgic recollection of an intimate conversation he had with Xi during a visit to China when Biden was vice president. Biden said Xi asked him to define America and he responded with one word: Possibilities. Biden even managed to squeeze in the anecdote during a celebration this week for the NBA champion Golden State Warriors.
21 news conferences
Updated
21: Biden held fewer solo or joint news conferences than his three most recent predecessors at the same point in their presidencies.
$1 trillion in infrastructure
Updated
$1 trillion:Â The amount allocated for roads, bridges, ports and more in Biden's bipartisan infrastructure legislation, arguably the most significant legislative achievement of his first two years in office.
$40 billion for bridges
Updated
$40 billion: The amount in the infrastructure bill dedicated to repair and rebuild the nation's bridges, the single largest dedicated investment in bridges since the construction of the Eisenhower-era interstate highway system.
43,000: The number of bridges in the U.S. rated as poor and needing repair, according to the White House.
1 state dinner
Updated
1: The president's lone state dinner to date honored French President Emmanuel Macron. Biden held back on some of the the traditional pomp � and partying � at the White House in the early going of his presidency because of COVID-19 concerns.
0 Cabinet departures
Updated
0: Not one of Biden's original Cabinet appointees has left the administration.
A closer look
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Taking stock of President Joe Biden's first two years in office compared to his three most recent predecessors.
