Bidenomics: Why Biden gets poor ratings on the economy despite improving numbers
Zachary Halaschak
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President Joe Biden’s economic approval ratings have stagnated even as inflation decelerates and the economy continues to add jobs in large numbers, creating a puzzle for his allies, as well as an opportunity for his rivals.
The White House has embarked on a political blitz in recent weeks in promoting “Bidenomics,” an effort to highlight all of the positive spots in the economy while tethering the president to the good news. The hope is that voters will be persuaded to reelect Biden in 2024 if they begin to see the economy in a better light, but that has not happened yet.
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As of Wednesday, just 38.3% of people approve of Biden’s handling of the economy, compared to nearly 58% who disapprove, according to an aggregation of polls by RealClearPolitics. A new CBS News/You Gov poll found that Biden’s economic approval has fallen to 34%, tied with the lowest it has been since the start of his presidency.
Additionally, a Monmouth University poll found only 3 in 10 adults view the country to be recovering better economically than its counterparts after the pandemic, even though the United States has outperformed many peers in key metrics.
The low economic approval readings are difficult to reconcile with many of the main indicators of economic health. Most notably, unemployment is just 3.7%, a historically strong number, and the economy has added an average of more than 278,000 jobs a month this year.
Of course, inflation has soared throughout most of Biden’s tenure, touching rates not seen since the Great Inflation of the 1960s and 1970s. It’s clear the public soured on Biden’s economic stewardship because households saw their expenses rise across the board.
Yet Biden’s approval ratings haven’t improved even as inflation has dropped — annual inflation, as measured by the consumer price index, fell from nearly 9% last June to just over 3% this June.
Nor have voters given him credit for avoiding the recession many economists predicted would follow as the Federal Reserve carried out the most aggressive monetary tightening cycle in years. GDP growth accelerated to a 2.4% annual rate in the second quarter and is expected to pick up to a 3.5% rate in the third quarter, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta.
One leading theory for why Biden’s ratings haven’t gotten a boost is the recent improvements may not have filtered down to voters yet and that it might take some time for Biden’s economic approval ratings to show any improvement from the good news in recent weeks and months.
“It’s taken a while for people to come out of a very, very difficult three years and actually look around and see we’ve got most of our old lives back, and in fact, we’ve got a stronger economy than we had when we went into it,” said economist Justin Wolfers, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. Wolfers noted that prime-age workers are working at higher rates than the country has seen in over 20 years.
Casey Burgat, legislative affairs program director at George Washington University, emphasized the staying power of the pandemic-era economic outlook during an interview with the Washington Examiner. He said that after years of gloomy and downright frightening headlines about the economy, many voters might still be feeling pessimistic.
“The economics are sticky, like once a story gets placed in, and people start internalizing it, it’s really tough to change their mind,” Burgat said. “And coming out of a pandemic, which everything was bad news for so long, and then inflation running at 40-year highs, and gas prices and the stock market going up and down all the time, just the uncertainty out there, painted a long picture that is really tough to paint over for a lot of voters.”
And Republicans have hammered the administration for the inflationary plague that took hold in 2021.
Alfredo Ortiz, president and CEO of Job Creators Network, said that while economists gauge inflation from where it was a year ago, that doesn’t matter to voters because inflation compounds itself, meaning that prices are still much higher than when Biden took office despite inflation cooling as of late.
“People feel and see what they see. No matter what spin comes out of the podium there at the press room or out of Biden’s mouth, they see the difference,” Ortiz told the Washington Examiner.
For instance, in January 2021, a gallon of gasoline averaged about $2.25, according to the Energy Information Administration. Now, a gallon of gas is about $3.60, an increase of 60% since Biden was sworn into office. Still, current prices are 28% lower than when the cost of gas peaked in June last year.
Another example: Boneless chicken breast was going for an average of $3.26 per pound when Biden began his term but has since risen more than 28%. Likewise, the index price of a used car, as tracked by CarGurus, was $22,807 in January 2021 but is now $29,542, representing an increase of nearly 30%.
Ortiz also pointed out that credit card debt is at record levels and record delinquencies. Savings levels are also extremely low, he said.
A White House official told the Washington Examiner that consumer sentiment has been rising alongside the more positive economic indicators. The official noted the number of pundits who previously predicted a recession and how many are now walking back their previous remarks in light of the incoming data.
“We are working to ensure the American people know how the president’s agenda is delivering for them by bringing jobs and pride back to forgotten communities, lowering costs and helping small businesses by promoting competition, and empowering workers who were failed by trickle-down Republican presidents and congressional Republicans,” the official said.
And while Biden and the White House work to hammer GDP growth, a growing labor market, and slowing inflation into the minds of voters (while sidestepping the negatives), Republicans are taking to newspaper columns and the airwaves to hammer just how much prices have grown and other negative economic developments since Biden was sworn in.
Because of the two sides being so entrenched and the wide array of news sources voters can choose from, polarization has grown, something that Wolfers said could be warping the accuracy of polling.
It used to be that when a voter was asked a question for a survey — such as, “How is the economy faring?” — they would stop and think about it. But what they do now is think, “Which team’s jersey do I wear, and what’s the best way to own that other team?” he said.
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“So when it’s a Republican in the White House, Democrats claim to be incredibly miserable about the economy, and when it’s a Democrat in the White House, Republicans are incredibly miserable,” he said. “And so what you end up with is people are telling you more about what team they support and less about the economy.”
Recent polling bears this out. A survey by the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research found that 47% of Democrats report the economy is in good shape, compared to a mere 13% of Republicans.