Prices are stabilizing and unemployment is low, but Democrats are despairing that a booming economy hasn’t improved voters’ opinions of President Joe Biden’s performance.
A number of recent polls show Republican front-runner Donald Trump leading Biden in a head-to-head matchup, while a recent Gallup survey showing a 32% approval rating for Biden’s handling of the economy is just one of several indicating low esteem for the president’s economic program.
That’s why Biden is changing course and adopting a new combative stance against American corporations — and a series of polls and focus-group results shared exclusively with MarketWatch indicate this could be a successful strategy going forward.
See also: New poll shows Trump leading Biden in five key battleground states
Commissioned by the left-leaning corporate watchdog Accountable.US and conducted by the Global Strategy Group, the polling found that a message of “cracking down on corporate price gouging” could be the most effective for Biden’s re-election chances.
The research and public-affairs agency surveyed more than 1,000 Americans nationwide, 225 of whom were registered to vote in one of the 18 congressional districts won by Biden and a congressional Republican. The group also commissioned three separate focus groups of voters without college degrees, a key demographic for Biden going into the 2024 election.
The cost of living is Americans’ top concern, and large majorities say that corporate “scams” and “hidden junk fees” have become more common of late and are a driver of rising costs, according to the findings.
“Americans want lawmakers to side with them, not corporate lobbyists and CEOs who needlessly raise prices to pad their profits,” said Tony Carrk, the executive director of Accountable.US. “Working families care about the Biden administration’s crackdown on hidden junk fees and corporate price gouging because it will lower their costs.”
Biden appears to be heeding this advice. The Washington Post reported this month that the president’s aides recently pitched him “on a plan to sharply rebuke firms for not lowering prices despite record profits,” and that “the president liked the idea and quickly approved it.”
The drivers of the surge in prices seen beginning in 2020 and only now subsiding have been hotly debated, but a vocal contingent of economists believes that corporate opportunism helped fuel inflation.
Isabella Weber, an economist at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, published research in July arguing that post-COVID inflation is “predominately a seller’s inflation” driven by corporate market power, deployed opportunistically to raise prices amid a supply-chain crisis.
Corporations have not been shy about wielding pricing power after years of low inflation, with companies including Procter & Gamble Co.
PG,
Coca-Cola Co.
KO,
Conagra Brands Inc.
CAG,
and Campbell Soup Co.
CPB,
announcing double-digit price increases in recent quarters, saying that resulting declines in sales volumes are more than made up by higher prices.
From the archives (August 2023): Greedflation is not letting up. Here’s what companies are saying about it.
Many other economists disagree that corporate power, or “greedflation,” has been a main driver of rising prices. They argue that unprecedented fiscal stimulus and a Federal Reserve slow to react to rising prices are the key causes of inflation.
Whatever the economists say, the polling commissioned by Accountable.US argues clearly that Biden should blame corporations and emphasize steps he has taken to rein in “hidden junk fees.”
More than 80% of Americans believe that “scams and deceptive practices” by corporations have become more common than before, while 68% believe the same about “junk fees,” according to the survey.
From the archives (October 2023): Biden administration moves to eliminate all junk fees: ‘Folks are tired of being taken advantage of’
What’s more, “disaffected Democrats,” or self-identified Democrats who disapprove of Biden’s handling of the economy, are especially receptive to the message, with 51% pointing to “corporations raising prices excessively to increase profits” as the primary cause of inflation.
The polling also suggests that Democrats should emphasize in their campaign messaging the work of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, especially its initiative to reduce “exploitative junk fees” charged by financial companies.
The CFPB has pressured banks to reduce overdraft, bounced-check and other fees, and estimates these efforts have led to an average of $170 in annual savings for the 33 million households affected by them.
While Americans are generally unaware of the CFPB, they approve of the agency’s mission and disapprove of efforts in the courts to have its funding structure — and potentially the agency itself — declared unconstitutional, the surveys show.
“Advocates should define the debate as protecting consumers instead of corporations, something that President Biden and Democrats in Congress will do, and Republicans will not,” the Global Strategy Group said in its analysis of the results.
“A critical segment of the public is stressed by rising prices but come to see pro-consumer efforts as likely to lower costs ‘for people like me,’” the group added. “Around one in five adults are not highly partisan, are highly sensitive to inflation, and expect the CFPB’s efforts will help them personally.”
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