Poll: ‘Suffering’ at Record High in Joe Biden’s America

US President Joe Biden rides his bicycle along the beach while on vacation in Kiawah Islan
NICHOLAS KAMM/AFP via Getty Images
Katherine Hamilton

Americans are “suffering” at a record-high rate under President Joe Biden — more than double the record-low rate experienced under former President Trump in mid-2020, a Gallup poll revealed Monday.

The percentage of Americans “who evaluate their lives poorly enough to be considered ‘suffering'” hit 5.6 percent in July, which is the highest since Gallup began polling on the issue in 2008. That rate is “higher than all prior estimates in the COVID-era” and is significantly higher than the record low of 2.4 percent achieved under Trump.

Gallup News concluded that economic conditions and 40-year high inflation is a “major contributing factor to these worsening scores,” as Democrats continue spending billions in taxpayer funds to grow the IRS and fight “climate change.”

“The practical consequences of inflation, too, are substantial, with an estimated 98 million Americans cutting spending on healthcare or routine household expenses as a result of rising healthcare costs,” the poll report states. 

The pollster also outlined how rising discontentment with U.S. moral values — which reached a record high in June — is “dovetailing with economic headwinds,” and could also negatively impact general life ratings. The increase in discontentment with U.S. moral values is driven largely by Republicans (72 percent “poor rating”), as Democrats push transgenderism on children, lobby for abortion up until birth, and defend drag queen story hours.

Suffering rates do not vary much between people of different political affiliations. Suffering among Republicans doubled to 5.4 percent from June of last year, Democrats jumped to 5.4 percent from 2.9 percent a year ago, and independents come in at 6.2 percent in July, easing slightly from 7.3 percent in April 2022.

“The movement in the suffering percentage is much more consistent across the three groups than the changes measured in the thriving percentage, which has declined much more for Republicans than their counterparts since June 2021. In July 2022, 53.0 percent of Democrats were classified as thriving, compared with 52.2 percent of Republicans and 47.7 percent of independents,” the report states. 

Americans’ stress levels have increased to 48 percent from 43 percent in July of last year. However, these rates are still lower than in March of 2020 near the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic. Daily worry is also at 42 percent compared to 38 percent last year, again lower than 59 percent in March of 2020. 

Gallup polled 3,649 adults nationwide between July 26-August 2, 2022. The margin of sampling error is roughly ± 2 percentage points for percentages around 50 percent and ±1.2 percentage points for percentages near 10 percent or 90 percent at the 95 percent confidence level. 

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