Ninety-seven percent of Americans believe President Joe Biden’s 40-year-high inflation is either a crisis or a problem, a Wednesday Quinnipiac poll revealed.
The poll asked respondents, “Do you think that rising prices in the United States is a crisis, a problem but not a crisis, or not a problem at all?”
Fifty-nine percent said soaring costs are a crisis, and 38 percent said it is a problem. The poll revealed a majority of all ages, genders, and colors believe inflation is a crisis. The only demographic majorities that said inflation is not a crisis but is a problem are Democrats (39 percent) and those with four-year college degrees (47 percent).
The poll also asked respondents, “How much control do you think a president has over inflation; a lot, some, only a little, or none at all?”
Ninety-one percent said Biden has at least some control over inflation. Broken down into categories, 36 percent said Biden has a lot of control over soaring costs, 33 percent said some, and 22 percent said he has at least some control. Only 9 percent said Biden has no control over inflation.
One of the greatest elements of soaring costs is gasoline. Sixty-eight percent said gas prices are either a somewhat or serious problem. Fifty-five percent said costly gas prices have caused significant cutbacks in spending.
The poll sampled 1,524 Americans from June 17 – 20 with a +/- 2.5 percentage point margin of error. It included 1,357 voters with a margin of error of +/- 2.7 percentage points.
The polling comes as Biden has proposed Congress enact a 90-day gas tax holiday. But Democrat members of Congress do not seem particularly interested in taking up the proposal, citing concerns that consumers may not be the ones who receive the benefit.
“Jason Furman, an economist who served under Barack Obama and now teaches economics at Harvard, agreed that Biden’s proposed gas tax holiday would benefit oil companies, not consumers.
“If supply is not very responsive to price (the situation now) then most of the benefit of the tax cut will go to suppliers. The intuition is that if it was passed onto consumers they would want to consume more than could be produced–driving prices back up,” Furman said.
Biden is trying to reduce the price of gas without ending his war on American energy, which includes driving up private and public financing costs of oil drilling, halting drilling on public lands, and canceling the Keystone pipeline.
According to the Energy Information Administration (EIA), Americans will pay $450 more for gas in 2022 than they did last year on an inflation-adjusted basis.
During Biden’s presidential campaign, he promised he would “end fossil fuels” by terminating subsidies and drilling feasibility.
Biden’s approval rating remained 33 percent, unchanged since January, according to Quinnipiac. Biden’s lowest all-time low is 32 percent, Civiqs polled.
Follow Wendell Husebø on Twitter and Gettr @WendellHusebø. He is the author of Politics of Slave Morality.