Voters are "feeling horrible" about the economy under President Biden as the 2024 presidential election nears, confusing some experts, according to a new report.
"Things are getting better and people think things are going to get worse — and that’s the most dangerous piece of this," Democratic pollster Celinda Lake told the Associated Press.
Lake also said that voters want prices to fall, not just inflation. "Honestly, I’m kind of mystified by it," she said.
President Joe Biden goes into next year’s election with a vexing challenge: Just as the U.S. economy is getting stronger, people are still feeling horrible about it," the AP reported.
Chair of the White House Council of Economic Advisers, Jared Bernstein, said that he is confident voters will be convinced of the strength of Biden's economy with time.
"We’ve got to keep fighting to lower costs and build on the progress that we’ve made," Bernstein said. "We just need more time to get these gains to working Americans — that’s our plan."
Other economists attempted to explain why Americans seem so uneasy with the economy.
"People have really been jerked around," former Federal Reserve economist Claudia Sahm said. "Things have been turned on and off. Everything has moved fast. It’s been disruptive and confusing. We’re just tired."
"Consumers have been feeling broadly uneasy about the economy since the pandemic, and they are still coming to grips with the notion that we are not returning to the pre-pandemic ‘normal,’" Joanne Hsu, director and chief economist of the University of Michigan's Index of Consumer Sentiment said.
AP News took the side of the economists who argued that the economy was doing well, despite voter concerns.
"By many measures, the U.S. economy is rock solid," AP News wrote. "Friday’s employment report showed that employers added 199,000 jobs in November and the unemployment rate dropped to 3.7%. Inflation has plummeted in little over a year from a troubling 9.1% to 3.2% without causing a recession," the report continued.
That is despite polls on the economy regularly finding that Americans are not at all optimistic.
According to a Fox News poll from November, most voters are concerned about inflation and higher prices. Three-quarters say the economy is in bad shape, and two-thirds don’t see any signs that it’s turning around.
Only 29% optimistically say the worst is over on the economy, an improvement from 25% in 2022.
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But more than twice as many, 67%, don’t see any signs the economy has started to turn the corner. That includes most Republicans (84%) and independents (77%). Overall, 89% are concerned about inflation. While that’s about where the level of concern has been hovering for the last year, it’s down from a high of 93% in July 2022.
Outlets like CBS, The Atlantic, and NPR, as well as prominent media figures like former CNN reporter John Harwood and Democratic strategist James Carville, have argued the economy is on the up and even that people are "stubbornly" clinging to their negative perception of it.
Biden's campaign did not respond to a request for comment from Fox News Digital.
Fox News' Dana Blanton and Gabriel Hays contributed to this report.
