Biden Administration’s Regulations Cost US Households Nearly $10,000 Each, Study Finds

President Joe Biden unveils his economic plan during an event in the lobby of an old post office building in Chicago, Ill., on June 28, 2023. Scott Olson/Getty Images

The Biden adminstration’s regulatory burdens have cost almost $10,000 for each American household, standing in contrast to the Trump administration, which reduced such costs, according to a recent report by the Committee to Unleash Prosperity.

“The Biden administration has so far been adding regulatory costs at a rate of $617 billion per year of rulemaking, not counting regulatory costs created by statutes and other nonrule regulatory actions,” the June 2023 report (pdf) said. “Assuming that the United States has 123 million households, the amount is equivalent to about $9,600 per household for the rules finalized in 2021 and 2022.” In addition, the Biden administration has more policies and regulations in the pipeline that could skyrocket regulatory costs, it warned.

“If its rulemaking costs accelerate at the same pace that the Obama administration’s did, the result after eight years would be a cumulative $7 trillion, which is almost $60,000 per household.”

In contrast, former president Donald Trump showed that regulatory costs can be “subtracted rather than perpetually added,” the report said. The four years of Trump administration cut down regulatory costs by around $11,000 per household.

“On an annual basis, President Trump was on net reducing regulatory costs (more than $300 billion per year of rulemaking) almost as fast as presidents Obama and Biden were creating them ($600 billion per year of rulemaking).”

If the Trump administration had lasted for eight years, it “would have saved a total of more than $21,000, which is a gap of $61,000 to $80,000 from the Biden trajectory.”

Regulatory Burdens

Back in October 2022, the conservative American Action Forum (AAF) had also warned about rising regulatory burdens imposed by the Biden administration.

In addition to imposing billions of dollars in additional costs, Biden’s regulations also added an estimated 193 million annual office hours of paperwork, the organization estimated. This is two and a half times the burden added under the Obama administration in its first 22 months in office and 443 times the burden added by the Trump administration.

The Biden administration is said to have quickly run up the regulatory costs partly due to reversing much of Trump’s deregulation. For instance, the car emission rules proposed by former president Barack Obama and scrapped by Trump were reinstated by Biden, with regulatory costs of the move estimated at $180 billion.

The Committee to Unleash Prosperity report also noted that automobile fuel economy and emission standards made up the biggest component of the total regulatory costs, accounting for a third of it. Other major regulatory costs came from health, telecommunications, labor, and consumer finance regulations.

During a June 7 hearing of the House Committee on Small Business, small-business owners called on Congress to ease business regulations.

David Zittel, a vegetable farmer from New York, for example, said that regulations are raising the cost of doing business to the point that his venture is in danger of pricing its products out of the market. “We look forward to carrying on the farming tradition, but also look to Congress to ensure that laws and regulations do not put us out of business,” he said.

Inflationary Burden

In addition to regulatory burdens, the Biden administration’s failure to control inflation is also financially weighing down on individuals and businesses.

At the June 7 hearing, Silvia Lee, executive vice president and chief lending officer for First Community Bank in Corpus Christi, Texas, said that the Federal Reserve’s decision to raise interest rates to rein in inflation is forcing many customers of her bank to scale down their operations.

Two builders in her area were forced to end operations with unfinished homes, leaving customers scrambling to find a builder to finish the construction, she said.

Meanwhile, individuals are struggling financially due to elevated inflation rates that have remained at or above 4 percent for every single month since April 2021.

A report published by PYMNTS in May revealed that 69 percent of urban Americans were living paycheck to paycheck. This was at 63 percent for rural Americans and 55 percent for suburban citizens.

In a May 2023 report (pdf), the Federal Reserve pointed out that overall financial well-being of U.S. households “declined markedly” in 2022 compared to the previous year.

“The share of adults who said they were worse off financially than a year earlier rose to 35 percent, the highest level since the question was first asked in 2014.”