Shifting Democrat responses to inflation have not improved their standing on the issue with the public, a poll released Wednesday suggested.
Democrats first denied that inflation was a serious problem, predicting it would soon fade and castigating those who raised it as following Republican talking points. At times, they said inflation would have a silver lining of higher wages or was a concern only to elites. More recently, the Biden administration has taken to claiming high prices are a result of “Putin’s price hikes.”
Now a new Morning Consult/Politico survey suggests that ahead of the midterm elections, voters trust Republicans far more than Democrats on the issue of inflation.
Forty-six percent of voters say they trust Republicans in Congress, a fourteen-point lead over the Democrats, who are trusted by just 32 percent of the public.
Democrats are also behind on the economy, trusted by just 36 percent compared to the GOP’s 47 percent. On jobs, Democrats get just 39 percent of voters’ trust compared with Republicans at 45.
Among independent voters, Republicans are far more trusted than Democrats on inflation, at 40 percent to 17 percent, the economy at 43 percent to 22 percent, and jobs at 41 percent to 27 percent.
Expected inflation over the next 12 months rose to 7.9 percent, an all-time high and a sign that consumers do not think inflation will be brought under control this year, according to a separate survey on consumer confidence by the Conference Board showed this week.
The University of Michigan’s poll of consumer sentiment last week showed that 32 percent of consumers expect their overall financial position to worsen in the year ahead, the highest ever recorded in the history of the surveys started in the mid-1940s. Half of all households expect declines in inflation-adjusted incomes in the year ahead due to the combination of rapidly rising prices and less positive income expectations, the survey showed.
“Inflation was mentioned throughout the survey, whether the questions referred to personal finances, prospects for the economy, or assessments of buying conditions,” said Richard Curtin, the University of Michigan survey’s chief economists. “When asked to explain changes in their finances in their own words, more consumers mentioned reduced living standards due to rising inflation than any other time except during the two worst recessions in the past fifty years: from March 1979 to April 1981, and from May to October 2008.”
Roughly one in five Americans mention the high cost of living/inflation or fuel prices as the most important problem facing the U.S. today, a Gallup poll showed Monday. That makes rising prices by far the issue attracting the most attention from Americans.