(Bloomberg) — Voter frustration over affordability fueled Democratic wins in last week’s state and local elections, and on top of that, Americans are becoming uneasy about the job market too.
Some 55% of employed Americans say they’re concerned about losing their jobs, according to a recent Harris Poll conducted for Bloomberg News. That angst follows a drumbeat of layoff announcements by major employers, including Amazon.com Inc., Target Corp. and Starbucks Corp. Outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas Inc. calculated the most job cut announcements for any October in more than two decades.
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It comes layered on top of households’ exasperation over the cost of living. A 62% majority in the Oct. 23-25 poll said the cost of their everyday items had climbed over the last month and nearly half of those people said the increases have been difficult to afford.
President Donald Trump and his aides have responded by putting a positive spin on the economic indicators and deflecting blame elsewhere — tactics President Joe Biden also used, to little avail — along with assuring things will get better. The risk is that, should the job market and prices fail to shift enough to satisfy voters, Republicans risk losing control of Congress in next year’s midterm elections.
“The Biden administration really was a cautionary tale about trying to convince voters that the economy is better than their intuitions suggest,” said Tobin Marcus, head of US policy and politics at Wolfe Research and a former adviser to Biden during his vice presidency.
Part of the challenge for Trump and his team is their economic program “is not squarely aimed at the pain points that are most important” to voters, Marcus said. The president has championed the steepest tariff hikes since before World War II to shrink the trade deficit and encourage a re-shoring of manufacturing.
“They are seeing misplaced priorities,” Marcus said. “No one’s making an argument that the tariffs will bring prices down, which is the thing that voters first and foremost elected him to do.”
Back in March, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said the administration would appoint an “affordability” czar, but no such announcement has been made. The White House didn’t respond to questions about the position, but spokeswoman Taylor Rogers said in a statement that “the Trump administration has implemented an aggressive economic agenda to lower prices of essential goods, boost real wages, and cool inflation.”
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