WATCH: 'You can't fix the economy until you fix the COVID crisis,' Biden says

President Donald Trump and former Vice President Joe Biden offered different views of the economy in the middle of the coronavirus pandemic. Trump said that after making the decision to reopen businesses that had temporarily shut down to mitigate spread of the virus earlier this year, the country is now "doing record business."

In August, debate moderator Chris Wallace noted, the unemployment rate declined by 1.8 percentage points to 8.4 percent, and the number of unemployed persons fell by 2.8 million to 13.6 million, according to the Bureau for Labor Statistics. By contrast, the unemployment rate a year earlier, in August 2019, was just 3.7 percent.

Biden said that while millionaires and billionaires have done well during the pandemic, middle- and lower-income people have suffered. He went on to criticize the president for insisting that states fully reopen their businesses and services even as COVID-19 cases and deaths continue to rise in many states around the country.

Biden and Trump are facing each other in Cleveland, Ohio, for the first of three debates before voting concludes in November. Despite meeting in person, the event will only include an audience of about 80 people, hosted by the Cleveland Clinic and Case Western Reserve University.

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