“My wife and I are very frustrated with where the country is headed, and we don’t have a lot of hope for the political end of it to get any better,” he said.
The poll shows only 39% of Americans approve of Biden’s leadership overall, while 60% disapprove. His approval rating fell to its lowest point of his presidency last month and remains at that level. The Democratic president gets hit even harder on the economy, with 69% saying they disapprove of him on the issue. Among Democrats, 43% disapprove of Biden’s handling of the economy.
Just 14% say things are going in the right direction, down slightly from 21% in May and 29% in April. Through the first half of 2021, about half of Americans said the country was headed in the right direction, a number that has steadily eroded in the past year.
Dorothy Vaudo, 66, said she but plans to switch allegiance this year.
“I’m a Democrat so I had to vote Democrat, but that’s going to change,” said the Martin County, North Carolina resident.
In recent weeks, Americans have endured even more bad economic news, with inflation continuing to rise, and as many serious economists . Yet has largely kept pace and hiring remains brisk in a sign that families and businesses have been able to withstand some of the economic pain.
In , Biden traced the decline in his popularity to increases in gas prices that began a year ago. He said that prices shot up further with . But he rejected claims by Republican lawmakers and some major economists that from last year contributed to inflation, noting that price increases were a global phenomenon.
“We’re in a stronger position than any nation in the world to overcome this inflation,” Biden said. “If it’s my fault, why is it the case in every other major industrial country in the world that inflation is higher?”
Douglass Gavilan, a 26-year-old in Miami, is concerned about the “skyrocketing” prices and rent that he sees in his community. Shelter costs are roughly a third of the U.S. consumer price index, so and has started to strain the budgets even of many people living where there are strong job opportunities.
“I don’t even know if I’m going to be able to live here in a few years,” Gavilan said. “I definitely don’t feel confident in the economy.”
Though he doesn’t identify with a political party, Gavilan voted for Biden in 2020. He doesn’t think Biden has proposed anything to make a meaningful difference in his life, but he does think the president’s in a tough spot.
“There’s very little he can do without everyone blaming him for everything,” Gavilan said.
The poll was conducted from Thursday to Monday, with many interviews conducted after and allowed states to ban abortion — a decision of the American people , which could also have contributed to the continued slump in the national mood.
The national dissatisfaction is bipartisan, the poll shows. Ninety-two percent of Republicans and 78% of Democrats say the country is headed in the wrong direction. Since last month, the percentage of Democrats saying the country is headed in the wrong direction rose from 66%.
Biden’s handling of remains a relative bright spot, with 53% of Americans saying they approve of his handling of that issue. On the other hand, only 36% say they approve of Biden’s handling of gun policy; 62% disapprove.
But the economy is what weighs on many Americans as their top priority.
Curtis Musser, 57, a chemistry teacher from Clermont, Florida, said he expects a recession is coming, though he believes it will be mild.
Musser said many Americans simply feel as though they’re at the mercy of events beyond their control, whether that’s the pandemic, rate hikes by the Federal Reserve, war in Europe or political hostilities within the U.S.
“I feel as an individual somewhat helpless,” he said. “I don’t have control of the markets, and you can’t really guess what markets are going do because you don’t know what the Fed is going to do. You don’t know what Congress is going to do. You don’t know what Vladimir Putin is going to do.”
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The poll of 1,053 adults was conducted June 23-27 using a sample drawn from NORC’s probability-based AmeriSpeak Panel, which is designed to be representative of the U.S. population. The margin of sampling error for all respondents is plus or minus 4 percentage points.
