First Lady Jill Biden praises unions in visit to Chicago

First lady Jill Biden used a pre-Labor Day celebration of Chicago’s labor unions Wednesday to leverage their support and sell her husband’s “Bidenomics” stimulus programs to voters who remain dissatisfied with the president’s job performance largely due to their feelings about the nation’s economy.

“My name is Jill Biden. I’m the first lady of the United States. And I’m a proud card-carrying union member,” the first lady, a community college teacher, said during a six-minute address to hundreds of labor leaders attending an outdoor reception overlooking Lake Michigan at McCormick Place.

“Unions are at the center of Joe’s need to build our economy from the bottom up and the middle out,” she said, using President Joe Biden’s description of his “Bidenomics” theory. “You are the backbone of this country.”

Since her husband launched the “Bidenomics” theme at a June 28 event at the Old Post Office in Chicago, the White House has sought to pitch…