On Eve of Midterms, Most Americans Say Economy Is Shrinking

The majority of Americans think the economy is shrinking, according to the latest poll from the Economist and YouGov.

Fifty-four percent of adult Americans think the economy is shrinking, the poll taken between October 16th and 18th shows. That’s 10 points higher than the poll taken between September 10th through the 13th.

The shift in the perception of economic growth was most notable among white Americans. In the September poll, 48 percent of white Americans said they thought the economy was shrinking. In the most recent poll, this jumped to 60 percent.

But the shift toward the impression of contraction happened among blacks and Hispanics also.  Thirty-two percent of black Americans said the economy was shrinking in September. In October this rose to 37 percent. Among Hispanics, the share who saw the economy shrinking in September was 32 percent. By October, this had jumped to 45 percent.

Among registered voters, the share seeing the economy as shrinking jumped form 44 percent in September to 54 percent in October.

Trump voters are increasingly convinced the economy is shrinking—and so are Biden voters. Trump voters who say the economy is shrinking went from 71 percent in September to 81 percent in October. Biden voters who say the economy is shrinking went from 22 percent to 29 percent.

This public conviction that the economy is shrinking stands in stark contrast to the Biden administration’s insistence that the economy is doing very well.

“Our economy is strong as hell — the internals of it,” Biden said to reporters during a Baskin-Robbins ice cream stop in Portland last week.