Ryan Bourne, Jai Kedia, and Nathan Miller
President Trump’s approval on inflation is at a historic low. The Economist/YouGov’s May 1–4 poll shows 25 percent of Americans approve of the way Donald Trump is handling inflation/prices while 69 percent disapprove—a net of ‑44 percent, lower than any point in either Biden or Trump’s presidencies since the question was added in October 2022.
That’s a remarkable development. Biden oversaw an inflation peak of 9 percent, which Trump hasn’t approached, yet Trump’s disapproval has surpassed Biden’s worst. As two of us explained last month, Biden’s disapproval peaked after it became clear disinflation would stall above the Fed’s 2 percent target.
Voters didn’t just want lower inflation, though; they wanted prices to fall. Trump promised exactly that before the 2024 election, telling a Pittsburgh rally, “A vote for Trump means your groceries will be cheaper.” Prices didn’t fall, and monthly inflation has yet to even hit the Fed’s target once under Trump (nor did it ever hit the target in the second half of Biden’s presidency). That alone explains much of the deteriorating approval across Trump’s first year.
More recently, inflation has accelerated again. The consumer price index increased 0.6 percent in April after rising 0.9 percent in March, meaning prices are up 3.8 percent in the past year. Energy prices led the pack, rising 3.8 percent in one month. The PCE price index, the Fed’s preferred inflation metric, rose 0.7 percent in March, too, also driven largely by energy prices.
Some of those price rises were to be expected. War in Iran has driven gasoline prices 28.4 percent above year-ago levels, and that mostly explains the 20.7 percent surge in the highly salient airline fares. But the concern with oil shocks is that they can pass through into virtually all other prices. This is because oil products are common inputs in several industries and significantly determine the cost of transporting goods and services. The evidence suggests that such price pressure is already broad-based: core goods are up 2.7 percent from a year ago, services 3.3 percent, and groceries are nearly 3 percent higher.
These numbers are particularly problematic for Trump given that this is an election year where affordability will be at the forefront of voters’ minds. Economists usually look to metrics like real earnings to measure affordability because they track whether wages have kept up with inflation. Those metrics are also gloomy. The BLS’s real earnings report shows real hourly earnings fell 0.5 percent in April. Some workers appear to be compensating by picking up extra hours—the average workweek rose 0.3 percent—but the combined effect is real average weekly earnings still fell 0.2 percent.
Until this month, despite inflation remaining stubbornly above the Fed’s 2 percent target, wage growth had outpaced price increases over the previous 12-month period. This recent inflation surge has now pushed consumer prices above cumulative year-on-year wage gains. April 2026 inflation caused real wage growth since April 2025 to dip negative, erasing any wage gains that had built up in the 11 months prior. In aggregate, consumer goods are slightly less affordable today than a year ago—the first time this has happened in three years.
In January 2026, Trump’s net inflation approval was ‑27 percent. That’s bad, but roughly where Biden ended his presidency. It’s now at ‑44, an almost 20-point deterioration in just four months. With no relief in sight from either tariffs or energy prices, Trump’s already-historic inflation disapproval may have further yet to fall.
