Surprising New Poll Reveals Americans' 'Top Problem' in 2023
As our nation continues to suffer from the oddly reluctant “leadership” provided by the Biden administration, Americans are beginning to shift their priorities and their pet peeves.
Things have been tough here in the United States over the last couple of years. Wall Street appears to be stalling out, a recession looms over the horizon, and inflation continues to take a bite out of our paychecks week by week.
But a new poll seems to indicate that Americans don’t see the economy as the most worrisome issue in 2023. Instead, they’ve turned their ire toward the political apparatus that continues to allow things to spiral out of control.
More Americans name the government as the nation’s top problem in Gallup’s latest poll, which encompassed the rocky start of the 118th Congress’ term. With high prices persisting, inflation remains the second most-cited problem (15%), and amid elevated tensions about the southern U.S. border, illegal immigration edged up three percentage points to 11%. Mentions of the economy in general fell six points, to 10%, the lowest reading in a year.
The poll’s Jan. 2-22 field period included the four-day, 15-vote process in which Republicans, who now hold a slim majority in the U.S. House of Representatives, ultimately elected Kevin McCarthy to be Speaker of the House. Revelations about classified government documents from 2009 to 2017 found in President Joe Biden’s private office and home also surfaced while the poll was in the field. Although mentions of the government as the nation’s top problem rose six points this month to 21%, job approval ratings of Biden (41%) and Congress (21%) remained flat.
This was true on both sides of the aisle as well.
The government ranks as the top problem for both Republicans and Republican-leaning independents (24%) and Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents (18%). Inflation and immigration are each cited by 18% of Republicans, while mentions of inflation (11%), the economy in general and race relations (9% each) trail the government among Democrats. Democrats are more likely than Republicans to view unifying the country and the environment as top problems.
And that wasn’t all:
Currently, more than four in five U.S. adults rate economic conditions in the country as only fair (38%) or poor (45%), with few describing conditions as excellent (2%) or good (15%). Furthermore, 72% of Americans say the economy is getting worse, 22% say it is improving, and 4% think it is staying the same.
The results will almost certainly affect the way that the Democratic Party moves forward in regard to the 2024 presidential election, as incumbent President Joe Biden appears dead set on announcing his reelection campaign in the coming weeks.
