Biden approval near record low amid economic frustration: poll

President Biden’s approval rating hit a near-record low in a new poll as Americans become increasingly frustrated with the economy.

The poll, from ABC News and The Washington Post, found that 37 percent of adults in the U.S. strongly or somewhat approve of the way Biden is handling his job as president, compared to 55 percent who said they strongly or somewhat disapprove. Seven percent said they had no opinion.

The approval is a 4-point drop from November, when ABC News and the Post found that Biden had a 41 percent approval rating among adults in the U.S. 

The rating, however, is not the president’s lowest — a Quinnipiac University poll of U.S. adults conducted last month found the president had a 33 percent approval rating.

February’s approval rating comes as Americans are grappling with economic frustrations, with consumer prices increasing 7.5 annually at the end of January, the fastest rate since February 1982.

Inflation in the U.S. has been elevated since the middle of last year, when the economy began rebounding from the COVID-19 slump, driving prices up.

Thirty-seven percent of American adults polled said they approve of the way Biden is handling the economy, compared to 58 percent who said they disapprove. Five percent said they had no opinion.

Fifty-four percent of respondents said they trust Republicans to do a better job at handling the economy, while 35 percent said the same of Democrats. Seven percent said they trusted neither, while 3 percent said they had no opinion and 1 percent said they trusted both.

And on the state of the economy, only 3 percent of respondents said it is currently “excellent.” Twenty-one percent said it is “good,” 36 percent said it is “not so good” and 39 percent said it is “poor.” One percent of respondents did not have an opinion.

A majority of adults say the economy got worse under Biden. Fifty-four percent of those polled said the economy has gotten somewhat or much worse since Biden took office, while only 17 percent said it has gotten much or somewhat better. Twenty-seven percent of respondents said it has remained the same, with 1 percent saying they had no opinion.

The poll surveyed 1,011 adults, including 904 registered voters, from Feb. 20 to Feb. 24. The margin of sampling error is plus or minus 4 percentage points.