Only 22% of Americans believe that the current state of the economy is “good” or “excellent,” according to a poll by The Economist/ YouGov (a respected pollster, according to polling experts). 40% believe it to be “poor.”
Only 23% of respondents said the country is headed in the right direction. By contrast, 62% think America is on the wrong track. The most optimistic demographic is blacks, 38% of whom think the country is headed in the right direct. Only 22% of Hispanics do. Only 17% of white people without college degrees are happy with the direction the country is headed in.
As the Mercatus Center’s Veronique de Rugy notes,
This anxiety is bound to continue. The administration prefers blaming the surge in prices on corporations, especially in the oil industry, rather than on its own policies—like the unnecessarily extravagant $2 trillion COVID-19 relief bill that passed in January 2021 and flooded the economy with fresh cash. More spending and taxes will inevitably follow such a large government expansion, and like most other Americans, 88 percent of Biden voters think these are both important issues.
During a recent address to the country, Biden noted that there is no federal solution to this pandemic, yet he declared his administration’s commitment to a legally dubious vaccine mandate for private employers. This could be explained by the fact that while Americans are equally divided on requirements by private employers to ask for proof of vaccination, 83 percent of his voters approve.
The poll could also help explain Biden’s seemingly contradictory support for in-person schooling. More people are against requiring proof of vaccination to attend in-person classes than are for it (though women are more supportive than men are of such measures). Fifty-seven percent of Americans are against asking for proof of a booster to attend in-person classes.
