South Pima News

President Joe Biden is spreading the word that America is experiencing "the fastest economic growth in nearly four decades," yet an historic rise in inflation has potentially damaged his approval rating, which could possibly hurt Democratic candidates in the upcoming midterm elections.

Data shows the U.S. economy grew last year at its fastest pace since 1984. According to the U.S. Department of Labor, wages have grown at their fastest rate in two decades. Unemployment rates have fallen while job growth continues. January Gross Domestic Product (GDP) reports indicate the economy has recovered from the worst of the pandemic.

“We are finally building an American economy for the 21st century, with the fastest economic growth in nearly four decades, along with the greatest year of job growth in American history,” Biden said in a statement after the release of GDP data.

But voters who have had their wallets squeezed by the rising cost of goods don’t see economic conditions in a positive light, according to January polling by Gallup. The survey found 29% of respondents said the economy is improving; 67% said they believe the economy is getting worse. 

Inflation's impact on the recovery's upsides is felt in Americans' everyday lives, with families paying more for everything from food to furniture to fuel. Prices at the pump have walloped wallets especially hard; according to AAA, there has been a 5% increase in average gas prices nationally over January. The current national average is $3.52 per gallon for regular gas as of Feb. 18, while a month ago, the average was $3.49 per gallon. 

According to AAA's state gas-price averages, Arizona is paying an average of $3.71 per gallon of regular gas and $3.96 per gallon of diesel. as of Feb. 18.

“There was a lot of optimism a year ago,” Karen Dynan, a Harvard economist and former Treasury official in the Obama Administration, told the New York Times in January. “We’d gotten the vaccines faster than we’d thought, and we thought our lives were going to be able to go back to normal, and people just expected the economy to come along with that. And maybe that was a little naïve.”

Much of that optimism seems to have evaporated, at least in the minds of consumers. In addition to the dismal Gallup numbers, data compiled in December 2021 by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York found 26.3% of consumers expected to be financially worse off in December 2022. Only 9.9% were pessimistic at the end of 2019, before the onset of the global COVID-19 pandemic.

“It’s kind of hard to be cheerful when there’s still a pandemic raging,” said Ian Shepherdson, the chief economist at Pantheon Macroeconomics, said to the New York Times. Plus, “pocketbook issues really are important.”

Biden’s declining popularity could impact Democratic candidates in the midterm elections. McLaughling & Associates, a conservative polling group, released a poll taken Jan 13-18 of 1,000 potential voters. The survey reports that 57% of respondents believe Biden is an "unfavorable" leader, while 42% say he is favorable. Meanwhile, 56% of people responding to the survey say they believe Kamala Harris is "unfavorable," and 39% say she is "favorable."  In the 2020 election, the state of Arizona favored the Biden and Harris presidential ticket.