Polls Indicate Many Americans Downbeat on Trump's Handling of Economy

Описание: US economic growth looks lopsided due to reliance on the AI boom and stock-market wealth causing many Americans to be downbeat about the economy and the president's handling of it. Many voters expressing cost-of-living anxieties and half of respondents in a survey saying the economy isn't working for them. Half of the respondents in an October survey by the Harris Poll for Bloomberg News said the economy wasn’t working for them – up from 41% in February – and only one-third said their finances were better than a year ago. Bloomberg's Mark Niquette joined Carol Massar and Tim Stenovec on 'Bloomberg Businessweek Daily' to break it down.

President Donald Trump has been back in office long enough for Americans to expect at least glimmers of the economic golden age he promised. Instead, warning signals are flashing.
They’re now coming from voters as well as from the patchy data available during a record-long government shutdown. The economy is expanding, but reliance on the artificial intelligence boom — and the stock-market wealth it’s generated — makes growth look lopsided. 

Democrats trounced Trump’s Republicans last week in elections where cost-of-living anxieties loomed large. Half of the respondents in an October survey by the Harris Poll for Bloomberg News said the economy wasn’t working for them – up from 41% in February – and only one-third said their finances were better than a year ago. 
To be sure, analysts caution against reading too much into off-year ballots, and many Trump policies have yet to fully kick in. His tax cuts promise to boost business investment, which has already thrived in the race to build data centers — though there’s also a headwind from Trump’s trade wars, which led many firms to freeze capital spending.

For now, with the job market cooling, consumer surveys and political polls find that Americans are downbeat about the economy and the president’s handling of it. Democratic candidates who campaigned on pocketbook issues won by big margins in Virginia and New Jersey governors’ races — tapping the same anxiety over high prices that helped Trump defeat Joe Biden, and that he’d promised to relieve from day one. 
“The economy remains resilient on the surface, but it’s increasingly dependent on three narrow, interconnected ‘A-pillars’: affluent consumers, artificial intelligence-fueled investment and asset price gains,” wrote Gregory Daco, chief economist at EY-Parthenon and president of the National Association for Business Economics. “If any one of these pillars weakens, the overall structure would become much less stable.”
‘Bearing Fruit’
The president and his team acknowledged their overhaul wouldn’t bear fruit overnight – while also setting expectations for when it would. By the fourth quarter, “you will feel the power of Donald Trump’s economy,” Commer

Now, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent is shifting that timeline. “2026 is going to be a gangbuster year and Americans will feel it in their pocketbooks,” he told Fox Business last week. Trump himself has argued he’s already delivered on his promises, telling reporters “I don’t want to hear about the affordability” because prices are “much less.”
On the growth front, what economists see right now is a slowdown capping Trump’s rollercoaster first year. US gross domestic product shrank at the outset — thanks to a monumental import surge, as firms and consumers rushed to get ahead of tariffs — and then rebounded fast for a while

What the White House sees is a “gradual transition” underway between the Biden and Trump economies, according to Pierre Yared, acting chair of the Council of Economic Advisers.
“The policies of the president are bearing fruit,” Yared said in a telephone interview. He pointed to three main metrics — overall growth, well-paying jobs, and building secure supply chains in America — as well as US outperformance over peers like the European Union.


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