There are few modern presidents so closely associated with economic difficulties than President Jimmy Carter. The comparison has gotten tossed around in recent decades, with some comparing George W. Bush to Carter during the housing market crash of 2008. However, that comparison isn’t as directly correlated to the comparison today between Carter and Joe Biden. Both Democratic presidents are presiding over periods of rampant inflation, with neither one showing any competence in solving it.
There is data to support this Biden-Carter comparison, however, with Biden now dropping below Carter in his handling of the economy at the same time during Carter’s term according to new polling from CNN:
President Joe Biden is struggling in the minds of the American public. While his approval rating is down on a slew of issues, his difficulties are perhaps most noticeable on the economy.
Biden now sports the lowest net economic rating of any president at this point through their first term since at least Jimmy Carter in 1977.
In the latest CNN/SSRS poll, Biden comes in with a 44% approval rating to 55% disapproval rating among registered voters on his economic performance. This makes for a -9 point net approval rating. The average of all polls taken in December is quite similar with Biden at -13 points on the economy.
To put that in perspective, the average president at this point in the last 44 years (since we have been polling on the topic) had a net economic approval rating of +5 points. That means Biden’s is 18 points worse than the average.
Biden’s well below his recent predecessors, Trump, Obama, and Bush. That’s mostly because at this time during their respective terms, the economy wasn’t the main driving force dragging down their poll numbers.
For Biden now, however, and Carter back in 1977 and 1978, the themes are similar:
Carter’s economic net approval rating of -8 points in an early January 1978 CBS News/New York Times poll was the lowest around this point in a presidency before Biden’s -13 points. The economy, and particularly inflation, was listed as the nation’s top problem in a late October 1977 Gallup poll.
Importantly, far more Americans (52%) in a November 1977 Time Magazine poll thought that Carter was not making a good start to fighting inflation than thought he was (21%). In other words, Americans felt his efforts were not enough to control inflation.
The comparison is uncanny as Americans today feel that Biden isn’t making any real progress against inflation or even properly acknowledging the issue. One of Biden’s advisors went so far as to call inflation a “high-class problem,” ignoring the fact that increasing gas and grocery prices directly affect low-income households much worse than anyone else. It’s the attitude of ignoring the problem so the media will stop reporting on it or asking about it. That has worked to a small extent, but it can’t be ignored when reports come out indicating the highest level of inflation in 39 years back in November.
No president wants to resemble Jimmy Carter when it comes to the economy. A feckless leader offering advice about “inflating your tires” to help improve gas mileage as a way to tackle gas shortages. It’s a different age, but also as tone-deaf as Biden’s Secretary of Transportation telling everyone that if they want to avoid high fuel prices, just buy an electric vehicle. Never mind that electric vehicles still cost $17,000 more on average than a comparable gas-powered car. It’s not a realistic answer for the people getting squeezed the most by gas prices.
Biden has some work to do if he wants to avoid the 2022 midterms turning into a bloodbath for Democrats. At this point, though, it may be too late.
