Americans do not seem to be in a happy place right now.
In an extraordinary finding earlier this week, a Monmouth University poll suggested that 88 per cent of people believed the country was on the wrong track.
The poll findings this week were broadly similar to a survey last month carried out by the Associated Press-NORC Centre for Public Affairs Research.
For politicians in a governing administration facing an election in about four months, having one in 10 people believe the country is heading in the right direction is probably a signal that they should not just worry, but pray.
The Monmouth poll found that the numbers believing the US was heading off course were getting higher – up nine points in a month from what itself was a record figure.
Supporters of the party of President Joe Biden are almost as worried as Republican voters. Eight out of 10 Democrats said the country was going in the wrong direction. The figure among backers of Republicans was 92 per cent.
“The state of the economy has Americans in a foul mood. They are not happy with Washington,” Patrick Murray, director of the Independent Monmouth University Polling Institute said.
Democratic party strategists hope the shock of the elimination by the supreme court last month of the federal constitutional right to an abortion may galvanise people to go out and vote for its candidates, who are promising to legislate to allow for terminations.
The Monmouth poll indicated that the issue of abortion rights had increased in importance compared with previous polls.
However, it is still mainly about the economy. Nearly half of all respondents identified the price of petrol or inflation as their biggest concern.
Bellwether price
Petrol is a bellwether product in the United States and its ups and downs are watched closely by both economists and the public given the importance of the car in American society and the distances people drive.
Petrol prices on average topped $5 (€4.90) per gallon a few weeks ago but have now fallen back a little since then to about $4.75.
But that is still about the double the price it was a couple of years ago and there are widespread regional variations.
The Biden administration has made no secret of its frustration at the fuel price rises, which it blames on Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine as well as on profiteering by oil companies.
The one big positive sign in the US economy is employment. Jobs are plentiful. However, a weakening economy may be the price of tackling soaring inflation, which is at a 40-year high.
At its meeting last month, the Federal Reserve increased interest rates by three-quarters of a point and warned they could go higher. Minutes of the meeting showed that raising interest rates could weaken the economy. But such steps were described as necessary to slow price increases back to the Fed’s target of inflation running at about 2 per cent.
Interest rates
The Fed will decide towards the end of July on whether, and by how much, interest rates should be increased further.
Increasing interest rates may be necessary to choke off inflation but politically, in the short term, higher mortgage outlays, credit card bills and college loan repayments are unlikely to be welcomed by hard-pressed voters who will be going to the polls in early November.
Who controls the US Congress from early next year will determine the future of Biden’s domestic agenda for the remainder of his four-year presidency. The president has had some successes including a huge infrastructure programme to develop roads, railways, ports and bridges across the country.
Biden was in Ohio this week highlighting new legislation aimed at shoring up workers’ pensions. He made a campaigning speech aimed, in part, at warning voters of what his rival Republicans would do if they regained the levers of power.
In the background, there have been rumblings of discontent from some on his own side, albeit mainly anonymously. There are concerns that he has been insufficiently robust in leading the fight against threats to abortion services after the recent supreme court ruling or for new gun controls or to protect voting rights.
The president’s main domestic programme – the sprawling “build back better” agenda covering education, healthcare, housing, climate change and tax reform, among others – has been stalled for months. Biden did not have the votes to get the $1 trillion-plus initiative through the Senate.
Efforts are under way to secure a deal on some key and popular elements of this plan, specifically a measure aimed at lowering prescription drug costs, which are some of the highest in the world.
Time is running out and even a deal on medication and healthcare subsidies under the Obamacare scheme would fall short of what was originally envisaged. However, it would provide a platform on which candidates could campaign.