Politics
Why Biden is getting little credit for the economy, especially in California
As President Biden struggles to sell Bidenomics to skeptical voters, he’s facing the all-too-real consequences of stubbornly higher inflation, but he’s also battling human psychology.
And both of those factors may be especially strong in California.
Most economists agree that the American economy during Biden’s presidency has made a remarkable recovery from the pandemic. And it continues to outperform expectations, even if California isn’t doing quite as well. But polls have consistently shown that the public by and large holds a negative view of the economy and, by extension, Biden’s handling of it.
While partisan politics, pandemic hangover and other factors have colored people’s attitudes, experts say inflation appears to be the single biggest economic albatross for Biden.
He entered office with an approval rating of 57%, but in Gallup’s latest poll in March that number was 40%, with his handling of the economy perceived as one of his biggest weaknesses.
This even though the rate of inflation has come down significantly from earlier highs and the incomes of Americans, on average, have risen to equal or often exceed the higher costs for most goods and services.
On Wednesday the government reported that inflation, as measured by U.S. consumer prices, edged up in March to 3.5% from a year ago. It was a little higher than expected, driven partly by bigger price increases for transportation, electricity and medical services. Food inflation was subdued, but shelter and energy prices are still running a bit too hot
Although the rate of inflation has declined since hitting a 40-year high of 9.1% in June 2022, it’s still well above the Federal Reserve’s 2% target, which could delay a much hoped-for cut in interest rates.
What’s more, experts say the slowdown in inflation isn’t what most people notice. Nor do they seem as relieved by the seemingly encouraging decline in inflation from 2022 as professional economists are. After all, it’s not that prices have fallen dramatically; they’re just not rising as fast as before.
That’s where basic elements of human nature come in, some economists and other analysts say: Consumers instinctively pay more attention to the dollars they have to shell out than they do to the increases in their paychecks.
That’s especially true when the purchases are for everyday items such as gasoline, for which prices in California are higher than elsewhere in the United States.
Today, U.S. consumers are paying 20% more for milk, about 30% more for bread and more than 50% more for eggs than they were in February 2020, just before the COVID-19 pandemic began, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics report Wednesday.
Rents are up more than 20% from pre-pandemic levels and electricity costs about 30% more.
For Californians, even with wage gains matching or exceeding consumer price increases, higher inflation may have an even stronger real and psychological impact because the state is so much more expensive to begin with.
“They worry whether inflation is coming back,” said Mark Baldassare, the statewide survey director at the Public Policy Institute of California. “It creates a new set of circumstances and anxiety in California, where housing and the cost of living is a major concern, especially for lower-income but also middle-income and younger Californians.”
In a statewide survey he conducted last fall, Baldassare found that a growing percentage of Californians were “not too happy” (26% compared with 20% in 2011 and 13% in 1998). And among the groups who are the least happy: 18-to-34-year-olds; renters; and those with household incomes of $40,000 or less.
Nationwide, prices for all goods and services have jumped about 20% over the last four years. And it’s been an especially startling jolt to many consumers because the vast majority of them had never experienced anything like it in their adult lives.
The last time inflation was at or near double-digits was in the early 1980s, and for most of the last 30 years it’s been close to the Federal Reserve’s 2% target.
“Part of the story is not just that we’ve had high inflation, but we’ve had high inflation with a generation that’s ill-equipped to deal with it,” said Justin Wolfers, professor of public policy and economics at the University of Michigan. “Young people today might think prices have risen by 20% and no one’s ever going to make me whole.”
But, in fact, Wolfers noted, gains in wages and salaries, on average, have actually outpaced inflation since the pandemic, with lower-income workers seeing the highest percentage gains.
Older people who went through substantial inflation before may have learned that it usually turns out to be a temporary problem: For at least the last half-century, when the cost of living has risen sharply, so have workers’ incomes, though not immediately.
Older generations understand the dynamic: “Inflation takes away with higher prices and then it gives back with higher wages,” Wolfers said.
In California, workers on average earned $1,595 a week in the third quarter of 2023, the latest available data from BLS. That’s 23% higher than the same quarter in 2019.
And it’s about five percentage points higher than the increase in prices over a similar period in California, based on data from the state’s Department of Finance.
But even though average paychecks have now matched or exceeded price increases — meaning most consumers’ purchasing power has not been eroded, Wolfers and other economists say — that’s not the way people process things.
When prices go up sharply, people get upset, thinking it unfair and unjust, and looking at the government or someone else to blame. But if their wages go up by just as much, people tend to “externalize” the increase, feeling they earned it, although in reality the bigger paycheck is largely the result of higher prices — and the resulting ability of employers to pay their employees more.
That psychology presents a big challenge for Biden, since it takes time for consumers to get over what they’ve internalized about high inflation. And although California will probably not be in play in November’s presidential balloting, the downcast mood of many residents due to inflation may only be magnified because the state’s economy has been lagging behind the nation.
Between February 2020 and February 2024, California’s payroll jobs have increased by 1.7%, half of the national job growth rate. The unemployment rate in California in February was 5.3%, compared with 3.9% for the U.S as a whole, although the state Finance Department’s chief economist, Somjita Mitra, said California’s share of long-term unemployed is comparatively much smaller.
The latest survey of consumer confidence by the Conference Board shows California significantly trailing other big states such as Florida, Texas, and New York.
And there are fresh signs that more California consumers are struggling financially. The share of credit card delinquencies, for example, rose in December to the highest level since late 2009 around the time of the Great Recession, according to the California Policy Lab at UC Berkeley.
“In California, the credit trends are deteriorating; they’re not headed in a good direction,” said its executive director, Evan White.
Household surveys by the Census Bureau, most recently in February and March, found that Californians are struggling more with housing finances and paying for usual living expenses than the national average. And a significantly larger share of Californians than most other states reported to the census that they had changed their driving behavior due to the cost of gas.
Gasoline prices in both the U.S. and California are up about 29% from February 2020, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. But the average price for a gallon of gas in California was $4.83 last month, compared with the national average of $3.45.
Gas prices have been rising again in recent weeks, and if that continues it could be another big impediment for Biden, said Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s Analytics.
The other key economic factor that Zandi thinks could sway some voters is whether interest rates come down.
For homeowners, higher inflation has meant higher home prices too. But renters, particularly those in their prime home-buying years, in their 30s and 40s, have felt locked out of the market due to high inflation and mortgage rates — particularly in pricey California.
“That really undermines their thinking about the economy and their own financial health,” Zandi said.
new video loaded: Cassidy Loses Primary After Drawing Trump’s Ire
transcript
transcript
Cassidy Loses Primary After Drawing Trump’s Ire
Republican Senator Bill Cassidy lost his Louisiana primary on Saturday after President Trump targeted him for voting to impeach him in 2021. The two-term senator took veiled swipes at the president in his concession speech.
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Thank you, Louisiana! I want to say thank you to a very special man who you all know, the best president this country has ever had, President Donald Trump. I’ve been able to participate in democracy. And when you participate in democracy, sometimes it doesn’t turn out the way you want it to. But you don’t pout. You don’t whine. You don’t claim the election was stolen. Our country is not about one individual. It is about the welfare of all Americans, and it is about our Constitution. And if someone doesn’t understand that and attempts to control others through using the levers of power, they are about serving themselves. They’re not about serving us.”
By Cynthia Silva
May 17, 2026
Drone strikes generator at nuclear power plant in UAE
Chief foreign correspondent Trey Yingst reports on a drone attack against a nuclear power plant in the UAE as President Donald Trump is set to speak with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu amid stalled negotiations with Iran.
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President Donald Trump renewed his stern warnings for Iran to come to peace and end its nuclear weapons aspirations Sunday.
“For Iran, the Clock is Ticking, and they better get moving, FAST, or there won’t be anything left of them,” Trump wrote in a Truth Social post.
“TIME IS OF THE ESSENCE!”
Trump, fresh off his trek to meet China’s Xi Jinping face to face, is weighing restarting military action on Iran, Fox News Digital reported earlier Sunday.
TRUMP WARNS IRAN’S ‘CLOCK IS TICKING’: MOVE ‘FAST’ OR ‘THERE WON’T BE ANYTHING LEFT’
President Donald Trump is renewing threats for Iran to come to peace and commit to giving up its nuclear weapons aspirations. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)
The president also had a call with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday.
“Our eyes are also open regarding Iran,” Netanyahu said Sunday morning, as translated from Hebrew. “I will speak today, as I do every few days, with our friend President Trump.
“I will certainly hear impressions from his trip to China, and perhaps other matters as well. There are certainly many possibilities, and we are prepared for every scenario.”
TRUMP MEETS NETANYAHU, SAYS HE WANTS IRAN DEAL BUT REMINDS TEHRAN OF ‘MIDNIGHT HAMMER’ OPERATION
Trump remains at the White House on Sunday, but no public or press appearances were on his schedule.
The call with Netanyahu came amid regional intelligence assessments on Iran that restarting of military strikes might be coming because of Trump’s frustration with Iran’s tactics amid the closing of the Strait of Hormuz and the rejection of his demand to give up nuclear weapons aspirations.
“The prevailing assessment inside Iran is that President Trump may resort to restarting military action, and Tehran is now deliberately pursuing a strategy of ‘deception and delay’ with the hopes that buying time will complicate any potential return to war,” two regional intelligence officials told Fox News.
EXPERTS WARN IRAN’S NUCLEAR DOUBLE-TALK DESIGNED TO BUY TIME, UNDERMINE US PRESSURE
Intelligence officials believe that the Iranian regime thinks it can delay developments and stretch the crisis out for at least two more weeks, so that the situation could become more difficult for Trump to restart the military campaign, both politically and operationally.
These sources say Iranian officials are looking at the World Cup and America’s 250th anniversary as a backstop that could work in their favor.
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The impact of the U.S.-led blockade is becoming increasingly visible inside Iran, according to a senior Israeli official, early signs of a developing fuel crisis emerging over the weekend – including long lines at gas stations and growing public discontent over fuel shortages and distribution problems.
“It’s getting exponentially worse,” the official added.
Fox News’ Trey Yingst and Yonat Friling contributed to this report.
Politics
Commentary: Californians on a confounding race for governor: ‘I haven’t … a clue who I’m going to vote for’
Eddie Martinez can’t stand Donald Trump. So when Eric Swalwell entered the race for California governor, Martinez had his candidate.
“I liked the way he took Trump on, the impeachment thing in Congress,” Martinez said of the former Bay Area congressman, a Trump nemesis who served as one of the House prosecutors in 2021 when Democrats held the wayward president to account for the second time.
Then, suddenly, Swalwell’s campaign collapsed under the weight of allegations of abuse, including charges he sexually assaulted a former aide. With Martinez’s choice out of the running, the Democrat turned to the candidate who’d been his second pick all along, Xavier Becerra.
Martinez has been familiar with Becerra for decades, going back to when the former congressman, state attorney general and Biden Cabinet member was in the state Assembly. To his credit, said the 65-year-old retired public relations strategist, Becerra has largely kept clear of controversy and there’s never been a whiff of personal scandal — an important consideration after Swalwell’s spectacular self-destruction.
On top of all that, Martinez said as he prepared to drop his mail ballot at a post office in Alhambra, it would be nice for California to elect its first Latino governor in modern times. It’s been, Martinez observed, more than 150 years.
With the gubernatorial primary entering its final two weeks, a contest that had been stubbornly formless has finally gained coherence. Becerra, who’d been widely given up for dead as he foundered near the bottom of polls, has unexpectedly emerged as the Democrat to beat.
“He has the most experience,” said Ruben Avita, a 57-year-old actor who leans Democratic and is tilting toward Becerra over hedge-fund billionaire Tom Steyer. “At this point,” Avita said as he waited to catch a double feature at a cineplex in Monterey Park, “I want someone with a proven track record.”
Among the Republicans running, Trump’s pick — conservative commentator Steve Hilton — seems firmly ensconced atop the GOP field.
“He’s got a lot more common-sense approach than any of these other idiots,” said Wayne The Flame — yes, he explained, that’s his legal name —which, while not exactly a ringing endorsement, still counts as a vote.
The Claremont independent, retired at 73 after a career selling motorcycles and hot rods, described Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco, the other major GOP contestant, as a racist and dismissed the entire Democratic field with a string of epithets. “Dumb—,” he said of the voters who keep putting the likes of them in power.
Peaches, a chihuahua/boxer rescue, stands alongside her owner, Wayne The Flame
If not terribly enthused, at least The Flame has made up his mind. Many voters remain undecided — or, at least, not entirely wed to a candidate.
Some are holding on to their ballots longer than usual, awaiting any last-minute developments and weighing the election odds as though wagering in a high-stakes game of poker.
Like many Democrats, Bryce Dwyer’s concern is that Hilton and Bianco will seize both spots in June’s top-two primary, advancing to a November runoff and giving California its first Republican governor in 16 years.
A 40-year-old project manager at the Getty Research Institute, Dwyer held his 2-year-old daughter as his son, 6, romped on a pleasant afternoon in Sierra Madre’s Memorial Park. Across the street, the bells of Christ Church chimed the hour.
“None of the Democrats are putting forth anything that is making me excited,” said Dwyer, who’s ruled out Becerra (he doesn’t see much there) and is deciding between Steyer and former Orange County Rep. Katie Porter. He’s trying to cast his ballot strategically, the East Pasadena resident said, and “it’s the first time in a while I haven’t really had a clue who I’m going to vote for so close to election day.”
Democrat Priscilla Vega of Monrovia has yet to settle on her candidate for governor
This is a deeply unsettled season in California, with precious little hope the next governor — whoever he or she turns out to be — will make things better anytime soon. That mix of discouragement and discontent surfaced repeatedly, like a dull ache, in conversations with dozens of voters across the San Gabriel Valley.
The region’s ethnic and economic diversity — from the working-class neighborhoods of Pomona through the Asian-majority suburbs to the mountainside mansions of San Dimas and Pasadena — make the valley a prime battleground in the race for governor.
Alana H., who asked not to use her last name, said she wasn’t even bothering to vote.
She ticked off some reasons: The soaring price of gas and rising cost of, essentially, everything else. The fear her college-age daughter will never be able to buy a home in California. Worse, is her loss of faith. She no longer believes in the promise, once taken for granted, that each generation will improve its lot over the last. And, Alana said, she’s not alone: “Anyone who’s an average person is in the same boat, we’re all just trying to stay afloat.” Standing in front of the post office in Alhambra, the 52-year-old paddled her arms as though to keep from sinking.
Jaunenito Pavon, in his Glendora wine and chocolate bar, would like California to elect a governor who could unify the state. He’s still deciding on a candidate
The politicians in both parties are “so out of touch,” she said, “all they’re doing is fighting over this and that, when everyone I know doesn’t care what party you’re in. They just want to put food on their table. They want their kids to have a better life.”
Shelby Moore has some of the same concerns. Forget about ever buying a home, said the 30-year-old California native, a Democratic-leaning independent. It’s no small feat scraping up money for rent. “I’ve lost almost every single friend that I went to high school or college with,” Moore said between waiting tables at a Mediterranean restaurant in Glendora. “They’ve all moved out of state.”
Shelby Moore, 30, a waitress in Glendora, said all her friends from high school and college have left California because it’s so expensive.
She’ll definitely vote, Moore said, though she doesn’t know for whom. One of the Democrats. Someone who’ll work to make California more affordable and keep people like her friends from being priced out.
In Claremont, Eric Hurley was another undecided Democrat. He attended last month’s gubernatorial debate at Pomona College, where the 56-year-old professor teaches psychological science and Africana studies. Otherwise, he’s been too busy to pay much attention to the race.
But it’s important, Hurley said, that whoever wins “keep fighting the good fight and standing by our liberal principles. I would hate to see someone in the governor’s office start capitulating to what the current administration is asking.”
Democrat Eric Hurley is undecided in the governor’s race. But he wants someone who’ll stand up to the Trump administration.
Others seconded that notion, that California needs to stand as a bulwark against Trump and his excesses, such as the draconian crackdown that has terrorized the state’s large immigrant population.
But there’s not a great appetite for the sort of performative pushback that’s won the current governor a wide audience on social media and boosted Gavin Newsom’s political stock as he positions himself ahead of the 2028 presidential campaign.
Jennifer Harris, 56, is a single mom in Monrovia who oversees payroll at a food manufacturing company. She has to stretch each of her dollars to make ends meet; soon she’ll be shelling out $30,000 a year for her daughter to go to college. Buying a home, Harris said, is out of the question.
She confessed to chuckling at the governor’s memes — an over-the-top oeuvre that includes Newsom as super hero, Newsom as religious beacon, Newsom as romance-novel hunk — and his other cheeky jabs at the president. “But that’s not an adult way to handle it,” Harris said between errands in Monrovia’s quaint shopping district. “It’s not solving any problems.”
Better, she said, for the next governor — she hasn’t decided whom she’ll support — to focus on practicalities: improving the economy, making housing and healthcare more affordable, dealing with homelessness and the underlying mental health issues.
Jennifer Harris said Gov. Newsom’s over-the-top social media presence is amusing. But she wants the next governor to focus on more practical things.
Britnee Foreman echoed that sentiment.
The 41-year-old, who lives in Azusa and works in the music business, was meeting a friend, Priscilla Vega, 43, for lunch in Monrovia. Along with a meal, the two Democrats shared their concerns about inflation and income inequality.
“Memes are great for publicity,” said Foreman, who’s deciding between Becerra and Porter, based on their policy experience. (Vega, a lifestyle marketer, has yet to narrow down her choice.)
Britnee Foreman says the next governor needs policies “with teeth,” not an active social media presence.
“But I prefer policy,” Foreman went on. “I don’t want them just to be the popular person out there on social media. It’s great if they’re tweeting and have a cute little Insta-story. But I need their policies to have teeth and actively move us forward. And not just look like it’s moving forward.”
After nearly eight years, amid widespread unease, California seems ready to put the Newsom era in the past. It’s just not clear what path voters will choose, or which candidate they’ll prefer to steer the state toward, hopefully, a better place.
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