(OPINION) Nearly three-quarters of Americans think the United States is heading in the wrong direction under President Joe Biden, according to yet another bad poll for the president ahead of the midterm elections.
Despite grappling with low favorability ratings for much of his first term already, Biden’s popularity experienced a deep downturn in recent months amid growing pessimism over the economy.
Now, a whopping 74 percent of Americans say the country is on the wrong track, while just 21 percent feel the nation is headed in the right direction, according to a new survey from NBC News.
It found more than half of the respondents — 58 percent — feel ‘more worried that America’s best years may already be behind us,’ with just 35 percent thinking the best years are yet to come.
Among their main concerns, according to the poll, was the economy — with 68 percent of respondents believing the United States is already in a recession, despite Biden’s attestations that the economy is rebounding after the country’s inflation rate hit a 40-year high in June.
In total, the poll found, that 55 percent of Americans now disapprove of the job the president is doing, while just 42 percent approve. That spells bad news for the president as he seeks to energize his base to cast ballots for a Democrat-controlled Congress in November.
The economy continued to be a major concern for the 1,000 Americans surveyed by NBC News from August 12 through 16. Over the past few months, inflation has consistently eclipsed the healthy 3.6 percent unemployment rate as a focal point for Americans, who are dealing with particularly sharp spikes in gasoline and food prices. The average cost of consumer goods rose to 8.5 percent in July, after reaching a 40-year high of 9.1 percent in June.
Householders are now spending nearly $493 more each month to buy the same items they were buying a year ago, according to Moody’s Analytics economist Mark Zandi, who studied the latest U.S. government price data. He called it a ‘big deal for a household making about $60,000 per year’. The median household income in the U.S. is $67,521.
The situation has since forced more Americans to seek help at food, with Feeding America, a national charity, reporting that 45 percent of food banks have seen an increase in demand, typically with 10 percent more beneficiaries asking for help. Now, the survey shows, that 56 percent of Americans disapprove of the president’s handling of the economy, while 40 percent still seem optimistic.
And when asked their thoughts on the newly-passed Inflation Reduction Act, a plurality of voters, 36 percent, reported thinking the legislation will not make a difference in their lives, while another 35 percent reported thinking it would make things worse for them personally. Just 26 percent of those surveyed said they thought the new law would be beneficial to them. (Daily Mail)
