Meanwhile, wage growth continues to lag behind the rise in the cost of living, for which 70% of Americans blame President Trump. As my colleague Steve Benen writes:
Perhaps most importantly, NBC News’ report emphasized that inflation’s rise “has surpassed wage growth,” which necessarily exacerbates the affordability crisis gripping American consumers.
Kevin Hassett, the director of the National Economic Council and the top economist at the White House, has argued in recent weeks that rising inflation should be blamed on Democratic policies in blue states. Those claims, like much of what Hassett has to say, have been thoroughly discredited.
And no one is buying it. The latest national CNN poll found that 77% of respondents, including a majority of Republican voters, agreed that Trump’s policies have increased the cost of living. The same poll found that just 30% of Americans approve of the president’s handling of the economy, a career low for the Republican across both terms. That mirrored the results of the latest national Associated Press poll.
There’s no reason to assume those results won’t continue to get even worse.