Biden’s hiring policy: No business experience required

“Biden’s appointees have only 2.4 years of business experience on average,” the authors found. Any fresh-faced 25-year-old on Wall Street has logged more personal office hours than most top Washington officials. Sixty-two percent said they had “no real business experience.” By contrast, the average Donald Trump cabinet official had 13 years of experience in the private economy, the authors say.

Familiarity with the business is especially important since President Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris have spent their lives in law or politics. But the authors found that Biden’s economic careers were dominated by careers in law (20), politics and government (21), and academia or policymaking (12). The main business experience is in venture capital or investment (five).

There are various exceptions. Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo was a successful capitalist before entering government, and Secretary of the Interior Deb Holland ran jobs in a New Mexico tribal casino.

Yet it’s fair to ask whether Biden’s policies and their results reflect a fundamental lack of understanding of how business works. One example is the Labor Department’s efforts to classify millions of contractors as employees, despite evidence that many workers prefer to be self-employed.

Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra has no experience in health care. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg was a mayor and management consultant with little experience in supply chains or America’s vast transportation network. Deputy Treasury Secretary Wali Adeyemo has spent his entire career in politics and government.

Purity of profit, wages, and competition seem to be considered virtues among today’s progressives. But that is not a virtue when the modern government has the power to regulate and punish private business. Presidents are free to appoint whomever they want, but the results of business ignorance in this administration speak for themselves.