President Donald Trump sits during an event on health care affordability in the Oval Office on April 23, 2026.Mark Schiefelbein/AP
Only 17 percent of Americans approve of how President Donald Trump is handling the cost of living, according to a recent poll from the Associated Press and NORC Center for Public Affairs Research.
This is a record low for both of Trump’s presidential terms—notable as he spent much of his 2024 campaign criticizing Democrats on the issue. About 70 percent, including about half of Republicans, said the president’s cost-of-living policies have been “worse than expected.”
The Associated Press reported that Trump’s economic approval mirrors Biden’s 28 percent in June 2022 during the initial years of the Covid-19 pandemic. A few months later, 55 percent of Americans said that affordability struggles were outside his control. But now, Americans are blaming Trump, with 65 percent reporting that the high cost of living is a result of Trump’s policies.
The survey was based on 2,140 US adults and was conducted from September 24-28 with a margin of error of 2.9 percentage points.