As the debt-ceiling deadline looms, Americans are deeply skeptical that senior Biden administration officials, and the president himself, have the wherewithal to navigate increasingly turbulent economic waters.
A new poll released by Gallup on Tuesday morning revealed that nearly half of Americans have “almost no confidence” in Biden to do the right thing when it comes to the national economy. Only 35 percent of Americans surveyed have confidence in Biden’s economic leadership, an approval rating that places him near the historical low set by President George W. Bush in 2008, who was at the time mired by foreign wars and the Great Recession.
“None of these leaders engenders much confidence now, and Americans have similarly low confidence levels in each,” said senior Gallup editor Jeffrey Jones. “In fact, many are at or near low points in the two-decade history of Gallup’s trend.”
Behind the president, the next group with the lowest rates of national support were Democrats in Congress, with 41 percent of respondents having barely any faith in their economic leadership. Conversely, congressional Republicans have remained relatively impervious to steep declines in confidence.
Americans have low confidence in President Biden, Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell and Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen on the economy, according to a new Gallup poll https://t.co/LyiKJqTaKY pic.twitter.com/4ItOZK8AmP
— CNN (@CNN) May 9, 2023
The same cannot be said, however, for the performance of Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell. Only 36 percent of respondents have confidence in Powell, the lowest rating Gallup has documented in his six-year tenure. Whereas Powell’s tenure under Donald Trump, between 2018 and 2020, exhibited an average confidence rate of 62 percent, thus far under Biden, it has plummeted to 48 percent.
Last week, the Federal Reserve raised interest rates for the tenth time, approaching the highest levels since late 2007 when the economy was entering a recession.
“There are no promises in this. But it just seems to me that it’s possible that we can continue to have a cooling in the labor market without having the big increases in unemployment that have gone with many, you know, prior episodes,” Powell told reporters following the news.
“Now, that would be against history. I fully appreciate that.”