By Paul Krugman / The New York Times
In recent years, the U.S. economy has been the wonder of the advanced world. It has recovered far more strongly from the covid slump than any of the other Group of 7 countries (the major advanced economies) except Italy (yes, Italy).
We did have a bout of inflation as the economy recovered from the pandemic, but inflation has subsided most of the way back to pre-pandemic levels; and U.S. inflation has been similar to that in other major economies. For example, if you use comparable measures of consumer prices, cumulative inflation since the start of the pandemic has been almost identical in the United States and the euro area.
As we all know, however, voters are remarkably reluctant to give President Biden credit. Lately, a number of observers have been picking up on a theme I’ve been banging on for a while: There’s a huge gap between voters’ negative perception of the economy and their generally positive assessment of their own situation. For example, according to the latest Quinnipiac poll of Wisconsin, only 34 percent of voters say that the economy is excellent or good, but 65% say that their own finances are excellent or good.
And negative perceptions of the economy are weighing down Biden’s approval rating. Or are they?
Morning Consult has just released its latest assessment of public approval for major leaders around the world. It reveals, among other things, that every Group of 7 leader has low approval — maybe because voters are still angry about past inflation. But here’s the shocker: Biden is the least unpopular of the bunch. Only Italy’s Giorgia Meloni comes close in the not-too-low approval contest.
You can argue that Biden should be doing better. But anyone suggesting that Biden is a uniquely bad candidate should be aware that his peers in other countries are doing much worse. In fact, if Britain were to hold elections today, Rishi Sunak would probably preside over the death of the Tories as a major political party.
Of course, if Biden loses in November, it might mean the death of American democracy. So he may be doing better than his peers, but the stakes here are higher.
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
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