One of the many problems facing President Biden’s bid for reelection is that high inflation, which soared after he took office, is now baked into voters’ monthly budgets.
The president and his aides note that the annual inflation rate has eased steadily, from its high of 9.1% in the summer of 2022 to 3.1% in January.
The trend hasn’t brought down grocery prices. Lowering inflation means only that prices for many items aren’t rising as fast as they were 18 months ago.
The price of eggs fell 28.6% from January 2023 to last month — good news, to an extent — but egg prices had risen 59.9% the previous year. So, the average carton of eggs today still costs roughly one-third more than in 2021.
The prices of some other consumer items have kept climbing. The cost of ground beef rose 6.7% last year after increasing slightly in 2022. The price of sugar rose 6.9% in 2023, a year after it spiked 14.3%.
Wholesale prices in the U.S. picked up in January, the Labor Department reported Friday. The Producer Price Index, which tracks inflation before it reaches consumers, rose 0.3% from December to January after falling 0.1% the previous month.
Brian Wesbury, the chief economist at Illinois-based First Trust Portfolios, said retail sales, industrial production, housing starts and permits “all disappointed” investors in January.
“Not just disappointed, but all were truly weak,” he said on social media. “Inflation came in hotter. This is not good. Stocks need either lower rates or higher profits. Looks like neither is in the cards.”
White House National Economic Adviser Lael Brainard noted that consumer sentiment has risen 30% over the past three months, “the fastest increase in 30 years — reflecting the increase in real wages, wealth, business creation, and job opportunities under President Biden’s leadership.”
Still, prices are about 19% higher on average than when Mr. Biden took office.
Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell said people may feel less confident about the economy despite historically low unemployment because they are paying “much more for the basics of life than they were two years ago, three years ago.”
“That has to be part of the reason why people are unhappy — and they are right to be unhappy,” Mr. Powell said at his most recent press conference.
Pollsters say economic anxiety is a prime reason for Mr. Biden’s low approval ratings and the large percentage of voters who think the nation is on the “wrong track.”
According to a Jan. 26-30 NBC News poll, 73% of voters said the country is on the wrong track and 22% said it is on the right track. In the same survey, respondents preferred President Trump’s handling of the economy to Mr. Biden’s by a margin of 55% to 33%.
In the same poll, voters gave Mr. Trump the edge over Mr. Biden on securing the border and controlling immigration (35 percentage points), on having the necessary mental and physical health to be president (23 points), on dealing with crime and violence (21 points), on being competent and effective (16 points) and on improving America’s standing in the world (11 points).
Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich called the NBC News poll “a real warning for Democrats.” He noted that 49% of respondents disapprove “strongly” of Mr. Biden’s job performance, compared with 16% who strongly approve, a ratio of 3-to-1.
“These are staggering numbers for Democrats,” Mr. Gingrich said on social media. “A positive, solutions-oriented GOP could win a Reagan scale victory this fall.”
Mr. Biden and his allies express frustration that he is not getting more support from voters for a relatively strong economy, with the unemployment rate below 4% and employers adding a whopping 350,000 jobs in January.
The president again tried to blame corporate greed for consumers’ distress. Mr. Biden released a video on Super Bowl Sunday criticizing “shrinkflation,” or smaller packaging of products for the same price.
“Sports drink bottles are smaller, a bag of chips has fewer chips, but they’re still charging just as much,” Mr. Biden said. “As an ice cream lover, what makes me the most angry is that ice cream cartons have actually shrunk in size, not in price. I’ve had enough of what they call ‘shrinkflation.’ It’s a rip-off. Some companies are trying to pull a fast one by shrinking the products little by little and hoping you won’t notice. The American public is tired of being played for suckers. I’m calling on companies to put a stop to this.”
At a recent campaign stop in Las Vegas, Mr. Biden boasted that his administration had managed to avoid an economic recession.
“How many times did you hear, when I first got elected president, my policy — we’re going to bring a recession next month? Every month,” he said. “None of them are saying it anymore.”
The president did acknowledge that “not everyone is feeling the benefits of our investments in progress yet.”
Nearly three-quarters of North Carolina voters say the U.S. is on the wrong track, as Mr. Biden and other Democrats eye the state as a potential flip opportunity in November.
In North Carolina, where Mr. Trump defeated Mr. Biden by just 100,000 votes in 2020, 73% of voters say the country is on the wrong track and just 33% approved of Mr. Biden’s job performance, according to the latest High Point University poll.
The poll found that 43% would vote for the Republican presidential candidate if the election were held today, 40% would vote for the Democratic presidential candidate and 7% would vote for another party.
“As the 2024 election year begins, voters are closely divided on their preferences for elected offices in North Carolina,” said Martin Kifer, chair of HPU’s Department of Political Science and poll director. “Registered voters are telling us that some of the same issues are most important this year as last, with inflation, national security and school safety at the top of the list.”
According to the latest Mood of the Nation poll conducted by Gallup, less than half of the respondents (47%) reported feeling “very satisfied” with their lives. That was down from 50% last year and just above the record low in 2011.
The Federal Reserve’s primary tool for fighting inflation, raising interest rates, has contributed to consumers’ frustrations. The average mortgage rate on a 30-year fixed loan is slightly above 7.5%, more than double what it was before Mr. Biden took office. It’s a problem for anyone in the market for a house, especially first-time homebuyers.
Voters’ opinions of the economy are divided somewhat by partisanship. In the latest Associated Press/NORC survey, 58% of Democrats had a favorable opinion of the economy, compared with only 15% of Republicans. In some surveys, Republicans are increasingly likely to rank illegal immigration as a higher concern than the economy.
• Dave Boyer can be reached at dboyer@washingtontimes.com.
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