According to a new Gallup poll published on Thursday, 45% of households in the United States say that inflation is causing them financial hardship. Ten percent have reported experiencing “severe hardship” as a result of the rise in prices.
Those in the lowest income brackets are hit the hardest.
New York Post:
Among those living in households making less than $40,000 a year, 71 percent said the recent price hikes have caused their family financial hardship, compared with just 47 percent of those in middle-income households and 29 percent in upper-income households.
Gallup defined an upper-income household as those bringing in more than $100,000 per year.
Among lower-income households, 28 percent described the hardship they’re experiencing as “severe and affecting their ability to maintain their current standard of living,” Gallup said.
Inflation appears to be a non-partisan plague with little difference in opinion about it across party lines. A YouGov poll found that 8% of Democrats said they’re experiencing “severe hardship” as a result of inflation, compared with 11% among both Republicans and independents.
A separate Yahoo News/YouGov survey released last week found that 77 percent of Americans say inflation has recently affected them to some extent, while 61 percent say the same about the ongoing supply chain crisis and the resulting shortage of goods and services.
When asked whom they blame for the high prices caused by inflation, 80 percent of Americans pin at least some of the blame on COVID-19, while 57 percent say President Biden bears “some” or “a great deal” of responsibility.
So far, Biden’s strategy of blaming the increase in inflation on the pandemic appears to be working. How much longer that continues remains to be seen, but if inflation continues to increase, it won’t be long until Americans turn their anger toward Biden and the Democrats.
That same YouGov poll found rising inflation to be the most important issue facing America (17%), surpassing COVID (15%) for the first time.
And just 18% of Americans think that Biden is doing enough to address high prices.
This is why Biden is desperately casting about for scapegoats to blame for high prices. He has the FTC investigating oil companies to determine why gasoline prices are so high when all he had to do was ask his energy secretary, Jennifer Granholm. He has also asked the FTC to investigate rising prices among big retailers like Amazon and Walmart.
Eventually, Biden will declare he found Captain Queeg’s missing strawberries and claim victory over the businessman’s plot to destroy his presidency. Meanwhile, the rest of us will continue to suffer a declining standard of living as inflation bites ever deeper into our wallets.
Source: PJ Media
