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AMERICA\u2019S LEFT\n depends on the support of young people. In 2008 it was they who powered\n Barack Obama\u2019s primary campaign against Hillary Clinton and were \ncritical in securing his landslide win against John McCain. In 2020, Joe\n Biden repeated his predecessor\u2019s success with the group\u2014who were \nlargely motivated by disapproval of his opponent, Donald Trump\u2014and won the White House.\n The election was so close that every young voter counted. But Mr \nBiden\u2019s failure to impress the young now threatens his presidency.
According to The Economist\u2019s\n analysis of polling conducted with YouGov, an online survey firm, an \naverage of 29% of American adults under the age of 30 approve of the job\n Mr Biden is doing as president. But that compares with 50% who \ndisapprove. The net rating of -21 points is the worst for any age group.\n Adults aged between 30 and 44 give Mr Biden a -17 rating; those aged 45\n to 64 come in at -5; and among adults aged 65 and over, the president \nis eight points underwater. This is a sharp reversal from the beginning \nof the year, when young voters gave Mr Biden a net approval rating 32 \npoints higher than older people did. And Mr Biden is falling out of \nfavour fastest with the youngest groups.
\n Why have the young turned on him? Many told YouGov that their biggest \nconcerns were climate change and health care. Here the president has \npromised much but so far delivered little. Younger Americans also care \nmore about civil rights and abortion\u200b\u200b\u2014and may be energised by recent Supreme Court rulings\n on the latter. Others are angry about student-loan debt and Mr Biden\u2019s \nunfulfilled promise to cancel at least $10,000 owed by every borrower.
however, top democrats currently believe that inflation is the primary reason why voter approval ratings are down, because in their lifetime, that\u2019s what happened with carter, even though wage growth is outpacing inflation for the vast majority. manchin, for instance, is refusing to pass build back better because of inflation, while many have theorized that biden ending the student loan pause is on similar grounds. as david dayen explains:
What we\u2019re doing now, though nobody is likely to admit it, is a form \nof this inflation-fighting. The implicit idea is that, by removing \npurchasing power from college grads and families, we reduce demand for \nconsumer goods, which will trigger a reduction (or slower growth) in \nprices. Instead of doing this through Federal Reserve interest rate \npolicy, we\u2019re doing it by directly burdening individuals with student \nloan costs, and reducing their share of a child allowance, rather than \nthe indirect rate-setting mechanism.
Either way, the effect is the same: putting people out of work (which\n is what would happen if you reduce consumer spending) and \nindiscriminately damaging a lot of lives. And in this case, it\u2019s \nextremely unlikely to bring about any kind of inflation-fighting goal. \nWe currently have a supply problem that has little to do with consumer \ndemand. If your staple items that you can\u2019t cut from your budget can\u2019t \nget to the store, relative demand isn\u2019t likely to fix the scarcity or \nbring the prices down.
In fact, in the current crunch, it could worsen the problem. Companies have been double-ordering\n inventory because of the uncertainty of getting goods smoothly. The \nslightest reduction in demand could leave them stuck with a bunch of \nitems that nobody wants or can afford. This is a ticking time bomb that \ncould prompt those companies to lay off workers. It\u2019s a function of an \nunstable supply chain, and pushing austerity on millions of people could\n light the fuse.
So you have a form of inflation-fighting that won\u2019t actually fight \ninflation, doesn\u2019t deal with the supply issues at the heart of the \nproblem, and instead stumbles into austerity for no good reason. A \ncombination of overconfidence, reluctant corporate Democrats, and \nwrong-headed political strategy has Democrats moving in a disastrous \ndirection.
There\u2019s time for them to pull out of this deadspin. Progressives have suggested\n extending the student loan payment pause, and the Senate is mulling \nover a short-term CTC extension to bridge to Build Back Better passage. \nMaybe focusing on fixing supply chains can lower prices and raise real wages. Whatever the solution, some decisions need to be made, and soon.