Biden spent the summer selling his economic record. Voters aren’t buying it yet.
President Biden spent the summer selling his economic record. Voters aren’t yet convinced.
A wave of end-of-summer polling released in recent days showed that Americans' view of how he has handled the economy remains largely unchanged and in dangerous territory for Biden's political prospects.
A Wall Street Journal poll released over the weekend was just the latest example. Only 37% of respondents in that survey approved of President Biden's stewardship of the economy, compared to 59% who disapproved.
Previous versions of the poll had nearly identical results. In April, 38% approved and 60% disapproved when it came to the economy. All the way back in March 2022, those same numbers were 39% and 59%, respectively.
These underwater ratings are reflected across multiple surveys, in spite of solid economic numbers and hundreds of appearances from Biden and his aides in recent months to tout them.
On prices, inflation gradually slowed over the last year with wage gains finally beating inflation. On jobs, as Biden himself noted in a Labor Day speech, unemployment has been below 4% for 19 months — the longest stretch in 50 years — as millions of jobs have been created since he took office.
"Guess what? It’s working," the president said of "Bidenomics" during Monday's stop in Philadelphia.
But many voters don’t agree, at least so far. An Economist/YouGov poll also released this weekend found 54% of respondents offering disapproving marks of Biden's economic stewardship, echoing consistent results from that poll throughout the year.
Likewise, a Yahoo News survey from earlier in August found 57% disapproving of Biden’s economic record versus 36% in approval.
A sour mood on the economy overall
Biden’s challenges on the issue are reflective of Americans who view the economy as being in a bad state independent of political considerations. Consumer confidence soured in August and remains far below pre-pandemic levels, with Americans consistently dour on the overall direction of the economy.
Polling also finds that even as fears of a recession have proven unfounded in recent months, a solid majority of Americans still expect the economy to be in a recession over the next year — with many even contending we're in one now.
Overall, measures of consumer confidence have loosely mirrored President Biden’s overall approval rating through his first 31 months in office.
But experts say that the key measure could face additional headwinds in the year ahead. One central issue for worldwide confidence is China. Macrolens chief strategist and managing principal Brian McCarthy recently told Yahoo Finance Live that a sagging economy in Asia is "going to have grave ramifications for consumer confidence."
Continued optimism from Biden's team
Biden himself has acknowledged in the past that Democrats have a fight at hand when it comes to convincing Americans that the economy is headed in the right direction.
Republicans, meanwhile, are eager to talk about the issue, with a focus on inflation in particular. Former President Trump is just one of the candidates looking to unseat Biden who bring up rising prices again and again.
"Inflation is ravaging our economy," Trump said in a Labor Day fundraising appeal, ignoring a consumer price index (CPI) that is hovering at around 3% in recent months when it comes to annual inflation versus 9.1% just a year before.
The unmoving economic perceptions have been a key point of concern in Biden’s inner circle for months now, with the president's approval rating already low but voters repeatedly rating his performance on the crucial issue of the economy even lower.
Still, aides repeatedly have said throughout the summer that they remain focused in on the 2024 election and confident in their strategy. As one aide colorfully argued to Politico, the team has a plan — to quote former hockey player Wayne Gretzky — to "skate to where the puck is going, not where it is now."
As Biden put it himself Monday, "We’ve taken the right steps not only to get our economy moving again, but to build to the future."
Ben Werschkul is a Washington correspondent for Yahoo Finance.
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