Americans are expressing deep dissatisfaction with the lack of leadership from Joe Biden and the Congress, according to a recent survey. This sentiment has surpassed the nation's worries about inflation, the immigration crisis, and the state of the economy. The poll results are indicative of how Americans are struggling to cope with economic challenges this past year as well as their expectations for the future.
The survey found that 'government/poor leadership' has risen to become the most pressing problem today with 21% of citizens citing it compared to 15% last year. Meanwhile, inflation and economic concerns have declined since 2020. 16% chose ‘inflation’ and 16% chose ‘economy’ last year, compared to only 15% for inflation and 10% for economy this year. Immigration saw an increase in concern, rising 3 percentage points from 8% in 2020 to 11%. Unifying the country remained unchanged at 6%.
Experts suggest that citizens’ views may be affected by recent changes in inflation which fell from 7.5% last January to 6.5% in December. And while both President Biden (41%) and Congress (21%) have seen little change in their approval ratings over the past year, Republicans (24%) cite ‘government/poor leadership’ as a bigger issue than Democrats (18%). For Republicans, inflation and economy remain top issues at 18%, followed by other concerns such as morality/ethics/family at 6%, and federal budget deficit at 5%. On the other hand, Democrats list inflation (11%), economy (9%), race relations (9%), unifying the country (8%), then environment (6%) as their main worries.
When it comes to current economic conditions, 45% of Americans rate it poorly while 38% view it fairly. Only 15% think that it's good, a figure that has barely improved since last year when 2% rated it excellent. Additionally, 72% believe that their financial standing will worsen over time yet 64% still consider this a good time to find quality employment - which is slightly higher than what was reported last year when 62 % thought so.
A new Gallup poll reveals that a plurality of Americans believe America’s biggest problem is poor government leadership. pic.twitter.com/YsdDrw2abn
— Contrarian Economist (@contreconomist) January 31, 2023
It's no surprise that people have recognized how worthless our leaders are, the problem is that they just keep voting for them expecting different results.
Photo Credit: Ennoti