A former economic aide for Barack Obama admitted there is "not much" Joe Biden can do to curb American voters' negative feelings about the country's direction and shift opinions about the president's handling of the economy, particularly regarding inflation.
In a guest essay published by the The New York Times, former Obama administration counselor to the Treasury Secretary Steven Rattner said voters have "valid reasons" for their grim attitudes, citing Civiqs data that found only 23% of Americans believe the country is inching towards a positive evolution.
The "sour national mood," as Rattner describes it," has been triggered by inflation woes, but an "understandable grimness" about broader economic prospects (particularly among young Americans) is playing a significant role.
He cited a recent Blueprint/YouGov poll that found only 7% of respondents were mainly worried about job availability, while 64% were most concerned about rising prices. This data, according to Rattner, spells trouble for Biden. By a margin of 43% to 23%, voters feel the president is more focused on jobs.
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The picture becomes bleaker for Democrats when considering that voters say Republicans are focused on their priorities, with 54% claiming they are more focused on prices and 18% mentioning job creation.
Rattner said that voters may have "internalized" Biden's initial policy agenda to increase government spending, a move that may be a potential source of volatile inflation.
A March Wall Street Journal-NORC poll revealed that only 21% of respondents felt confident that the next generation would have a higher standard of living.
Rattner noted that almost 50% of Americans between the ages of 19-29 live at home with their parents, the highest rate since the Great Depression.
Biden also has far lower support among young Americans. In 2020, 60% of voters under 30 voted for the current president. Today, that number has dropped by 10%.
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"What can Mr. Biden do, with the election just 11 months away? Probably not much. While inflation is happily showing signs of ebbing, the deeply structural productivity problem, decades in the making, would require many tough choices and require many years to address, even if our deep political divisions were to end a national consensus were to form around the need for action," he wrote.
However, Rattner suggested that Biden is not without hope. Turning the nucleus of the 2024 campaign away from his own shortcomings and towards the flaws of his opponent may benefit the president, as it did for Bush in 2004 and Obama in 2012.
"Given the extreme views of today's Republicans on issues like abortion and democracy (not to mention Mr. Trump's obvious character flaws), shifting the focus of the 2024 campaign to his opponent may work well for Mr. Biden — even if the economic mood remains cranky," he wrote.
