President Donald Trump’s economic agenda is coming back to bite him as voters face rising prices and paychecks that aren’t keeping up, according to a new Slate analysis.
Politics writer Ian Prasad Philbrick argued Wednesday that booming stocks and relatively low unemployment offer little comfort to Americans more concerned about affording groceries, rent and gas.
“Two data points out today show why Donald Trump and his party are probably in for a drubbing in next month’s midterms,” he wrote, adding — for one thing — that “inflation is on the wrong trajectory.”
Annual inflation climbed to 3.7% in September, up from 3.4% in August and 3% when Trump returned to office.
Although that remains below the pandemic-era peak, voters remember what necessities used to cost, Philbrick said Wednesday.
“So while sticker prices are rising less quickly than they once did, they still register to many Americans as unacceptably high,” he wrote in his analysis. Philbrick noted this has left the typical earner’s purchasing power effectively unchanged since Trump took office.
“That isn’t much of a record for him or his party to boast about,” the politics writer concluded.
Philbrick blamed the squeeze partly on Trump’s tariffs and months-long Iran war, arguing that the president worsened the very problem voters elected him to solve.
Republicans also face a tougher environment than in 2018, when Democrats gained 41 House seats despite majorities approving of Trump’s economic record. Several recent polls now favor Democrats on economic issues, according to Slate.
As voting approaches in states across the country, Philbrick warned that “the economic fundamentals that drive most electoral outcomes are baked in at this point.”