The S&P 500 took a 21% plunge in the first six months of 2022, minting the index’s worst performance in that interval since 1970. President Joe Biden The University of Michigan reports that consumer sentiment is at its lowest level in the history of their survey, which has been running since just after the Second World War. Inflation remains at 8.6%, and the Atlanta Fed’s GDPNow service forecasts that the United States is in the midst of a recession (defined by economists as two quarters of economic contraction). Fair or unfair, headlines like these explain why just 33.4% of Americans approve of President Joe Biden’s job performance on the economy. The tight labor market may be the 46th president’s only viable economic talking point, and even that one is dubious: The labor-force participation rate remains more than one percentage point lower than it was in February 2020.
Americans continue to sour on President Joe Biden, whose approval rating has been in the red since mid-August. Rasmussen Reports, a conservative pollster that tracks the president's approval rating daily, pegs his disapproval rating among likely voters at a whopping 60%. President Joe Biden Just 38% of likely voters approve of Biden's job performance in Rasmussen polling, an all-time low for the 46th president. The left-leaning Quinnipiac College polling operation reports that Biden's approval rating is only 35% among registered voters, and 33% among all Americans. At this point in former President Donald Trump's tenure, Rasmussen pegged his approval rating at 46%. The 45th president hit a 38% approval rating only once in his presidency (on August 2, 2017) and never saw his support slip below that level. Polls show that Trump would beat Biden by almost five points in the popular vote if the 2024 election were held today. Trump lost the popular vote in both 2016 and