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11 months ago
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President Joe Biden's approval rating has fallen behind even that of his chronically unpopular Vice President Kamala Harris, a new Monmouth poll found.
In Monmouth's December survey just 34 percent of Americans approved of the job Biden is doing, while 35 percent said the same thing of Harris.
It's a low water mark for Biden in this particular survey, which saw him at a high of 54 percent approval when he came into office.
Now 61 percent of Americans say they disapprove of the job Biden is doing.
Biden, especially, disapproves of his poll numbers, asking staff in a meeting last month what they were doing about them.
Vice President Kamala Harris' (left) approval rating is one-point higher than President Joe Biden's (right), as the president has offered stern words to his staff over his numbers being in the gutter
The December Monmouth University found that 34 percent of Americans approve of the job Biden is doing, compared to 35 percent who approve of Harris. She's traditionally been less popular than the president
The Washington Post reported Monday that Biden had assembled a small group of aides for a meeting in the White House residence ahead of his Thanksgiving trip to Nantucket.
He delivered stern words to the group, saying that his poll numbers were unacceptably low and wanted to know what White House aides and his campaign team were doing about it.
The president and first lady Jill Biden have voiced frustration for months over Biden's low approval numbers, but in recent weeks have grown upset that the numbers haven't budged.
While the president has touted 'Bidenomics' and economic numbers have improved since the COVID-19 pandemic, a downturn Biden inherited from former President Donald Trump, poll after poll shows Americans are still frustrated and not giving him credit for incremental improvements.
'The Biden administration keeps touting their infrastructure investments and a host of positive economic indicators. Those data points may be factusl, but most Americans are still smarting from higher prices caused by post-pandemic inflation,' observed Patrick Murray, the director of the Monmouth University Polling Institute. 'This seems to be what's driving public opinion.'
Digging into the numbers, Biden was rated the worst by Americans in December on the issues of immigration and inflation.
Sixty-nine percent of those polled disapproved of Biden's handling of immigration, while 68 percent said they disapproved of his handling of inflation.
Currently 44 percent of Americans say they are struggling to remain where they are financially.
That number sat around 26 percent during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 and stood at 24 percent in June 2021.
It spiked to 42 percent as inflation peaked at about 9 percent in June 2022, but went down to 37 percent in October 2022.
And while inflation has slowly improved, the number of Americans who reported struggling financially started to increase again hitting 41 percent in March and then 44 percent in December.
'There is political danger in pushing a message that basically tells people their take on their own situation is wrong,' Murray also warned.
Additionally, just 31 percent of Americans said Biden has been giving enough attention to the issues that are most important to their families.
The Monmouth University poll was conducted by telephone from November 30 to December 4 and surveyed 803 U.S. adults.
The margin of error was a plus or minus 4.8 percent.
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