The American people remain stubbornly ungrateful for the Biden economy.
The University of Michigan’s survey of consumer sentiment showed that Americans feel more rotten about the economy than any time since the summer of 2011. The composite index of consumer sentiment fell to 59.7, even lower than the depressed figures for January and February. Economists were once again proven too optimistic as they had estimated a reading of 61.7.
What exactly was going on in 2011 that had Americans feeling so glum? Consumer sentiment had been on a bumpy path upward since the lows of early 2009 and the worst moments of the global financial crisis. Unemployment was still riding high, wages were stagnant, and a protracted debate over raising the U.S. government debt ceiling made it clear that any government aid was exhausted. Sixty-one percent of people said they disapproved of President Barack Obama’s job performance.
“Never before in the history of the surveys have so many consumers spontaneously mentioned negative aspects of the government’s role,” survey director Richard Curtin said in a statement back in 2011.
The current decline is due primarily to inflation. Consumer expectations for inflation rose to their highest level since 1981 in the survey. A record number of households expect their financial situation to worsen over the coming year because of inflation. Thursday’s Consumer Price Index report showed inflation running at 7.9 percent, the highest since 1982, with no sign of slowing down. If anything, inflation is likely to pick up thanks to soaring oil and record-high gas prices.
The economy and inflation are now far and away the most important issue for Americans, even with the war in Ukraine raging. Fifty percent of Americans say it is the primary issue elected official in Washington, D.C., need to address, double that of the issue of Ukraine, which is in second place.
Biden, however, is flunking the exam. Sixty-five percent of Americans say the economy is headed in the wrong direction, and 60 percent say the state of the economy is poor or not so good. Sixty-three percent disapprove of the president’s handling of the issue of inflation and rising prices, including 54 percent who strongly disapprove.
You would have to be churlish to give too much blame to President Joe Biden for being fed up with a public that just will not show him the admiration Jen Psaki tells him he so richly deserves. “I’m sick of this stuff,” Biden said Friday. “The American people think the reason for inflation is the government spending more money. Simply. Not. True.”
Got that, America? However much you disapprove of the job Biden is doing on inflation, he disapproves of the job you are doing with inflation even more. It’s no doubt frustrating for the president that the founding fathers, in an obvious oversight, provided for the people to vote politicians out of office rather than the other way around.
