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Unemployment in the United States is less than 4 percent, which is about as low as it realistically can be.
That means, logically, that job growth has been strong. So strong, in fact, that the nation has gained back – and added – all the jobs lost during the pandemic.
How much direct control presidents have over this sort of stuff is debatable, but through the years there has been a constant: Presidents benefit when there is low unemployment.
But not anymore.
A recent Monmouth University poll rated Joe Biden on five measures, one of which was his performance on “jobs.”
The results were not favorable. The poll found that 53 percent of respondents disapproved of Biden’s performance on jobs; 42 percent approved.
What gives?
Patrick Murray, the director of the Monmouth poll, said simply:
“We’re just in a different world.”
What he means is that in the political universe of Donald Trump, what was conventional and the norm pre-Trump is no longer the case.
The former president, Murray said, has turned things upside down.
It may be hard to put your finger on what precisely that means, but here’s my take.
In the pre-Trump world, we had hard “facts” and statistics that just about everyone respected. No longer.
Recall that Trump’s spokesman at the time claimed that the new president’s inauguration crowd was massive. Photographs said otherwise. What followed was Kellyanne Conway’s infamous comment about “alternative facts.”
And away we went.
Trump has been “brilliant” in convincing his followers that the only news that’s true is the news that comes from his lips. At a Trump rally I attended a few years ago in Bedminster, a man actually said he would only believe Trump lost the election if he said he did. There you have it.
So, it’s a good bet that Trump supporters polled are not going to believe the unemployment figures and will respond accordingly. That, naturally, impacts the poll. This is also true with other issues and other facts.
The Monmouth poll also surveyed views on infrastructure. Now, the Biden Administration proposed – and got approved – a $1 billion-plus bill to fix the nation’s roads, bridges and to also do such things as expand internet access and remove lead from the water supply. Many Republicans voted for this bill as well.
Yet, a majority, 52 percent, disapproved of Biden’s performance on infrastructure.
The president also got a 54 percent disapproval rate on climate change, despite passage of legislation in the summer of 2022 that appropriated about $370 billion to clean energy initiatives. Nothing like that has ever happened before.
Looking at polls, of course, is far from a mere academic exercise.
Barring a change in plans, Biden will run for re-election next year amid these – and other – depressing poll numbers.
This is not an easy problem for Team Biden to negotiate.
As Murray says in the poll summary:
“The Biden administration keeps touting their infrastructure investments and a host of positive economic indicators. Those data points may be factual, but most Americans are still smarting from higher prices caused by post-pandemic inflation. This seems to be what’s driving public opinion. There is political danger in pushing a message that basically tells people their take on their own situation is wrong.”
Yes, it is problematic for politicians to tell people their perceptions are wrong, But what if they are wrong?
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