Nearly 6 in 10 Americans say that the Biden administration’s economic policies are to blame for the 13-year high in inflation, according to a new Morning Consult-Politico poll released Wednesday.
The survey, conducted from Friday through Monday, found that 59 percent of registered voters said that President Biden’s policies were either “very responsible” or “somewhat responsible” for the increasing inflation, with 28 percent believing the administration was “not too responsible” or “not responsible at all.”
Comparatively, about 53 percent of those surveyed attributed the inflation to Americans’ return to pre-pandemic spending behaviors.
Republican voters largely fueled the high percentage of blame placed on the administration’s policies, with 82 percent of GOP voters identifying the economic measures as “very responsible” or “somewhat responsible.”
On the flip side, Democrats were more likely than Republicans to attribute the inflation to the return to pre-pandemic behaviors.
The findings come as Biden and top administration officials have argued that the inflation is a temporary byproduct of the surge in spending and demand as the economy bounces back from the pandemic-fueled crisis.
Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell said Wednesday that while the U.S. has moved toward the “substantial further progress” the Fed would like to see, there was still “some ground to cover” before the central bank would start easing off stimulus.
Powell in a press conference argued that continued COVID-19 concerns with the rise of the highly transmissible delta variant, preferences for better employment and federal jobless benefits were all contributing to why the labor market has not yet reached full recovery.
At the same time, GOP lawmakers have blamed Biden and Democrats for coronavirus spending packages that they allege are driving up inflation, including the American Rescue Plan.
An internal poll released last week from the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) found that 70 percent of respondents across several battleground districts were either “extremely or very concerned” about rising prices and costs of living.
About 60 percent of voters in the NRCC poll also said they did not approve of Biden’s handling of rising costs.
Wednesday’s Morning Consult-Politico poll, which included a sample of nearly 2,000 voters, reported a margin of error of 2 percentage points.