Vance spoke for about 35 minutes, including taking questions from reporters, at the Uline Shipping Supplies warehouse in Lower Macungie Township outside Alburtis.<\/p>\n
The vice president pointed to an improving economy. However, U.S. Labor Department numbers released Tuesday showed the national unemployment rate rose to 4.6% last month \u2014 the highest since 2021.<\/p>\n
U.S. Labor Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer joined Vance at the warehouse, standing before red-and-green-labeled Uline boxes as she celebrated a decent gain of 64,000 jobs in November. The growth was offset by the loss of 105,000 jobs in October as federal workers departed after cutbacks by the Trump administration.<\/p>\n
Trump is encouraging investment in United States jobs by penalizing companies \u201cfor doing something overseas that you ought to do in the United States of America,\u201d Vance said. Without offering specifics, he said Pennsylvania is seeing \u201c$100 billion of new investment.\u201d That\u2019s in the ballpark of the $90 billion of investments<\/a> in data centers, energy and power infrastructure, and workforce and AI training projects celebrated by Trump and U.S. Sen. Dave McCormick, R-Pa., in July.<\/p>\n \u201cSo if you look at every single affordability crisis that we talk about in the United States of America today, it\u2019s because we inherited a nightmare of an economy from Joe Biden,\u201d Vance summarized, referring to the Democratic administration sandwiched between Trump\u2019s terms as the 45th and 47th president.<\/p>\n Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro, himself a target of criticism at Tuesday\u2019s event, responded earlier Tuesday morning<\/a> to Trump\u2019s claims from a week ago in Monroe County that Democrats had used the term \u201caffordability\u201d as a \u201choax\u201d to hurt his reputation. <\/p>\n \u201cDonald Trump and JD Vance\u2019s economic policies are hurting Pennsylvania,\u201d Shapiro wrote on social media. \u201cThey have raised prices at the grocery store, screwed over our farmers, and gutted healthcare funding.<\/p>\n \u201cI know this Administration thinks the cost of living is a \u2018hoax\u2019 \u2014 but it\u2019s not, and Pennsylvania families know it. And JD Vance \u2014 the Lehigh Valley is the last place you should try and sell your BS alternative reality.\u201d<\/p>\n Among the speakers taking the stage before Vance were Pennsylvania Treasurer Stacy Garrity, who is eyeing a 2026 Republican run for governor<\/a>, and U.S. Rep. Ryan Mackenzie, the first-term Republican representing the Lehigh Valley<\/a> in Pennsylvania\u2019s 7th Congressional District.<\/p>\n Vance seized on lower fuel costs across the United States<\/a> as a factor in driving down stubborn costs, both for the truckers who deliver to supermarkets and the farmers who grow our food.<\/p>\n The White House says inflation has dropped to an average of 2.7%<\/a> during Trump\u2019s new term. <\/p>\n Private sector wage growth is up 4.2%, Vance said. <\/p>\n That\u2019s helped to reverse a loss of nearly $3,000 in purchasing power as inflation rose faster than wages under Biden, according to the White House. <\/p>\n Vance pointed to other factors that he says are behind higher costs that the Trump administration is fighting: \u201cIllegal aliens\u201d pushing up rent and prescription drug prices as \u201cthe biggest drivers of increased health care costs.\u201d<\/p>\n Lehigh County\u2019s Democratic executive-elect, Joshua Siegel, responded to Vance\u2019s appearance: \u201cToday\u2019s visit by JD Vance was not about helping working families in the Lehigh Valley. His remarks are just a continuation from a con job presidency that has been defrauding Pennsylvanians. He has nothing to offer but more of Trump\u2019s broken promises, delivered to con the American people and distract them from this administration\u2019s lies and failures.\u201d<\/p>\n On the whole, Vance echoed Trump\u2019s self-assessment of his handling of the economy as deserving of an \u201cA-plus-plus-plus\u201d grade<\/a>, greeted by cheers from an animated crowd of supporters.<\/p>\n So far, however, the public has been skeptical about Trump\u2019s economic performance. Just 33% of U.S. adults approve of Trump\u2019s handling of the economy, according to a November survey by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research. A realclearpolling.com average of national polls on Trump\u2019s economy<\/a> shows 40.8% who approve to 55.7% disapproval; the website\u2019s aggregation of polls on Trump\u2019s job overall performance<\/a> is slightly better with 43.9% approval compared to an average of 53.4% who disapprove.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m a little surprised by when the Democrats talk all the time about affordability,\u201d Vance said. \u201cDemocrats say: \u2018Things aren\u2019t affordable. This isn\u2019t affordable. This has gotten more expensive. Drugs have gotten more expensive. Housing\u2019s gotten more expensive.\u2019 And you know what? They\u2019re right. And it was because of them. It ain\u2019t that hard.\u201d<\/p>\n Vance touched on issues unrelated to the economy, including Vanity Fair\u2019s piece<\/a> based on extensive interviews with White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles, who described him as \u201ca conspiracy theorist for a decade.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n \u201cSometimes I am a conspiracy theorist, but I only believe in the conspiracy theories that are true,\u201d Vance told the Lehigh County gathering Tuesday.<\/p>\n The Associated Press contributed to this report.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Assigning blame for the nation\u2019s higher cost living, Vice President JD Vance on Tuesday visited the Lehigh Valley…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":62676,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[119,121,120],"class_list":{"0":"post-62675","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-allentown","8":"tag-allentown","9":"tag-allentown-headlines","10":"tag-allentown-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62675","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=62675"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62675\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/62676"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=62675"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=62675"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=62675"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"JD](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/2J2OKIT6ZJF33F3T6Q3FXSWHZI.jpg\")
Vice President JD Vance boards Air Force Two at Joint Base Andrews in Maryland, on Tuesday, Dec. 16, 2025. He blamed former President Joe Biden for an affordability crisis during a Lehigh Valley visit later in the morning, while Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro called President Donald Trump administration’s economic message “BS alternative reality.”Tom Brenner\/The New York Times via AP<\/p>\n