Nothing focuses the minds of American voters more than an economy gone sour.

As voters watch their chances of living the American dream dwindle — the price of homes, gas, cars, food, and other necessities skyrocketing; good-paying full-time jobs disappearing; and layoffs spreading throughout the economy — they just want to make the pain go away.

And the easiest way for citizens to rid themselves of this pain is to vote out of power its perceived cause: the sitting president and his party.

Americans forced out of office Herbert Hoover in 1932 because they blamed him for the Depression.  Jimmy Carter lost the presidency in 1980 because of high inflation and recurring recessions.  George H.W. Bush's 1992 re-election bid was doomed by high unemployment and tax hikes.  In 1932 and 1980, the economy also cost the president's party control of the House and Senate.  

In 2024, Joe Biden will be confronted with an election problem Hoover, Carter, and Bush didn't have.  He has the unenviable task of running not just against a faltering economy, but also an opponent Americans believe created a prosperous economy: his predecessor, Donald J. Trump.

When Americans elected Biden in 2020, their message to him was clear: Trump handed you a booming economy.  Just don't do anything to ruin it!

Unfortunately, Biden has done just that, and Americans have taken notice.

A new USA TODAY poll reveals that Americans trust Trump over Biden by 47% to 36% to restore American prosperity.  Independents trust Trump over Biden on the economy 46% to 25%.  Seventy percent of Americans think the economy under Biden is getting worse.  Only 20% see it as improving.

As pollster John McLauglin stated in a recent Atlantic magazine interview, the American people consider Trump a solidly performing president who brought the country a strong economy, low inflation, and real wage growth.

After years of "secular stagnation" under Obama, Trump delivered 3% growth.  Trump engineered this boom largely by opening federal lands to oil and natural gas development and using deregulation to get the government off the backs of industry.

In 2020, despite the months-long COVID restrictions on business activity imposed by  Democrat governors and mayors in New York, California, Michigan and elsewhere, the nation's GDP roared back at an eye-popping 33% clip in 2020's third quarter.

The Trump economy Biden inherited in early 2021 was expanding at a 6.7% annual rate.  Unfortunately, in less than three years Biden's war on fossil fuels, overregulation of industry, and wasteful government spending has driven the country into financial hell.

During the Trump years, inflation grew at a mild 1.8% per year, enabling inflation-adjusted average wages to rise almost 9%, incidentally the first real raise Americans had received in decades.

Under Biden, inflation has eviscerated Americans' income.  Under Trump, inflation-adjusted income reached its all-time high of $78,250 in 2019.  According to the Census Bureau, by the end of 2022, Biden's policies drove down income to $74,580.  A near-record number of Americans are taking multiple jobs just to make ends meet.

Under Trump, mortgage rates dropped to 2.65%.  Biden's mortgage rates have surpassed 7%.  The Goldman Sachs index and the National Association of Realtors' measures show that housing affordability has reached the worst levels ever.  First-time buyers are in the worst position to purchase a home since the early 1980s.

Trump slashed regulatory costs by $11,000 per household.  Biden's regulations cost Americans a total of $10,000 per household.

Trump's energy policies drove gas down to $1.87 per gallon.  Biden's climate policies resulted in a record $5.02 in June 2022.  Gas hit $7.00 per gallon in some areas in late August 2023.  Crude oil could soon surpass $100 per barrel.

In early 2021, just after President Trump left office, the average cost of cars was $35,000.  Now, under Joe Biden, car prices exceed $46,000.  The average car payment is an unaffordable $746 per month.  Car repossessions are soaring.

According to Vice President Kamala Harris, well over half of all Americans cannot cover a $400 bill without taking on debt.  Consumers owe $1.1 trillion on their credit cards.  Fifty-three percent of Americans are living paycheck-to-paycheck, many draining their 401(k) retirement accounts to make ends meet.

Credit rating agency Fitch downgraded United States debt due to expected "fiscal deterioration over the next three years."  Expect the U.S. to be downgraded even lower.  It was just announced that the U.S. deficit for fiscal 2023 was revised from its originally reported $1 trillion to $2 trillion.

Not unexpectedly, most Americans believe they are doing worse under Biden.  The Gallup economic confidence index and the University of Michigan's Consumer Sentiment reveal that  Americans haven't been this pessimistic about the economy since the financial crisis of 2008–9.

Clinton's former secretary of labor, Robert Reich, claims that these numbers are reflecting the fact that under Biden, "the poor grow poorer, and the working middle is under worsening siege."

According to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, 15.3 million people have been added to the poverty rolls since Biden took over.  The poverty rate for children has doubled, said the left-leaning think tank.

The jobs picture has deteriorated over the last several months.  The Bureau of Labor Statistics now estimates that hundreds of thousands fewer jobs have been created in 2023 than earlier reported.  The downward revisions brought the June through August three-month average to a weak 150,000 jobs created.

And even these downward revisions might be overly optimistic.  According to research company SouthBay, excluding the Bureau of Labor Statistics' "seasonal adjustments," in August, the U.S. economy actually created a paltry 20,000 jobs, not the reported 187,000 jobs.  That makes August 2023 the worst month for U.S. job creation since the global financial crisis of 2008.

SouthBay bluntly stated that "hiring is at a standstill. ... [T]o suggest that the labor market is strong is not supported by the actual data."

Recent jobs reports uncovered a much more disturbing fact.  Full-time positions, the ones that provide health benefits, paid vacations, high wages, and a modicum of security, are disappearing.  This summer, July and August, full-time jobs have dropped an alarming 670K, the biggest two-month plunge since governments shut down the economy in early 2020.

Shockingly, an article entitled "Say Goodbye to Your Full-Time Job" revealed that there are 1,000,000 fewer full-time jobs filled today than they were before the COVID lockdowns started.

McKenzie consulting company reports that 36% of the workforce is now composed of freelance workers, temporary workers, gig workers and contract employees, up from 26% just a few years ago.  McKinsey found that 97% of graduating college seniors they surveyed are not expecting to get full-time career jobs and will opt for a series of "gig" and temporary jobs to make a living, or simply go to graduate school rather than take a non-career job.

If the economy doesn't turn around soon, Gen Z most decidedly will become a lost generation, postponing or completely eschewing marriage and children.  Gen Xers, now in their early 40s to late 50s, have also been hard hit by the Biden economy, reportedly bearing the brunt of the COVID layoffs.

A recent Bloomberg article states that the housing affordability crisis alone could cost Biden a huge swath of younger voters in swing states like Wisconsin and Pennsylvania.

According to Atlantic magazine, a recession, which many Americans believe has already arrived, would be devastating to Biden's re-election hopes.  

The 2022 midterms provide an indication of how rising prices, shrinking savings, and worsening job conditions could impact Biden and the Democrats in the 2024 election.  In 2022, the Democrats lost the House, but most importantly, their voter turnout slumped precipitously.  The party received almost 10 million fewer votes than they did in the 2018 midterm elections.  At the same time, the Republicans increased their midterm turnout by 5 million votes.

This roughly 14-million-vote turnaround between 2018 and 2022 from Democrat to Republican enabled the GOP to win the popular vote by over three million.

Most analysts become distracted by daily headlines about political battles, indictments, and impeachments, forgetting Clinton aide James Carville's adage that in all elections, ultimately, "it's the economy stupid."

If the economy continues to bleed jobs, if inflation impoverishes the American voter, if the dollar devalues, if younger Americans feel hopeless about their future, and if (heaven help us) more banks fail, the American public as always will blame the sitting president and his party.  Even if the Democrats dump Biden and replace Biden with a Kamala Harris or Gavin Newsom, the Democrat brand will be poison.

A recent poll showing Trump beating Biden nationally also showed Trump leading among independents by 15 points.  Credit the Biden economy.

Over the next year, the Trump campaign and the Republican party must remind Americans daily about the economic malaise created by Biden and the Democrats.

The GOP must not trust the mainstream media to tell the story about the American economy.  The party should use speeches, social media and TV ads, and even billboard displays to hammer home the message that we are living in a Biden Bust and that only Trump can restore American prosperity.

Unless the economy makes a dramatic turnaround, Joe Biden and his party will likely experience the same devastating electoral outcome suffered by earlier presidents seeking re-election during a steep economic downturn.

Sociologist Michael G. Zey, Ph.D. is the author of Ageless Nation, Seizing the Future, and The Future Factor; professor, Montclair State University (retired).  www.zey.com.  twitter.com/futurist3000. Facebook.

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