Voter frustration over affordability fueled Democratic wins in last week’s state and local elections, and on top of that, Americans are becoming uneasy about the job market too.
Some 55% of employed Americans say they’re concerned about losing their jobs, according to a recent Harris Poll conducted for Bloomberg News. That angst follows a drumbeat of layoff announcements by major employers, including Amazon.com Inc., Target Corp. and Starbucks Corp. Outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas Inc. calculated the most job cut announcements for any October in more than two decades.
It comes layered on top of households’ exasperation over the cost of living. A 62% majority in the Oct. 23-25 poll said the cost of their everyday items had climbed over the last month and nearly half of those people said the increases have been difficult to afford.
President Donald Trump and his aides have responded by putting a positive spin on the economic indicators and deflecting blame elsewhere — tactics President Joe Biden also used, to little avail — along with assuring things will get better. The risk is that, should the job market and prices fail to shift enough to satisfy voters, Republicans risk losing control of Congress in next year’s midterm elections.
“The Biden administration really was a cautionary tale about trying to convince voters that the economy is better than their intuitions suggest,” said Tobin Marcus, head of US policy and politics at Wolfe Research and a former adviser to Biden during his vice presidency.
Part of the challenge for Trump and his team is their economic program “is not squarely aimed at the pain points that are most important” to voters, Marcus said. The president has championed the steepest tariff hikes since before World War II to shrink the trade deficit and encourage a re-shoring of manufacturing.
“They are seeing misplaced priorities,” Marcus said. “No one’s making an argument that the tariffs will bring prices down, which is the thing that voters first and foremost elected him to do.”
Back in March, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said the administration would appoint an “affordability” czar, but no such announcement has been made. The White House did not respond to questions about the position, but spokeswoman Taylor Rogers said in a statement that “the Trump administration is confident that the disastrous Biden economy will be a relic of the past as we continue to make America affordable again.”
Lately, Bessent has taken to playing up how good things will get next year, when he says the impact of Trump’s signature tax-cut legislation will be felt. Billions of dollars worth of tax refunds will be flowing, and job gains will come from the surge of investment in artificial intelligence, he said Tuesday on MSNBC.
Trump’s advisers are considering plans for the president to give more speeches around the country about the cost of living, according to a White House official. Trump has done relatively little domestic travel to sell his agenda compared to his recent predecessors.
‘Ominous’ Signs
For now, many Americans aren’t buying the administration’s narrative. The Harris Poll showed 48% of respondents said it would take them four months or longer to find a new job of similar quality if they lost their current one. The survey of 2,203 adults had a margin of error of +/- 2.5 percentage points.
Job growth has slowed, with payroll gains having plunged from an average of 168,000 a month last year to just 27,000 in May through August — the most recent month for which there’s data. Inflation remains above the Federal Reserve’s 2% target.
Trump’s tariff policies have both contributed to price pressures and to uncertainty among businesses, undermining incentives to hire. The administration’s sweeping cuts to federal programs also have left thousands of federal workers unemployed and squeezed contractors.
“A number of signs, including the most recent consumer sentiment survey, suggest that the economy and the labor market are weakening,” said Michael Reich, an economics professor at the University of California at Berkeley. “If those trends continue, the party in power will be blamed. That’s ominous for the Republicans in the midterms.”
Job Pledges
Consumer sentiment fell near the lowest on record in early November, according to a University of Michigan survey. Similarly, an October survey from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York found the share of Americans who expect the joblessness rate to be higher in a year rose for a third straight month.
The administration has said the economy will turn in coming months.
“We are building auto plants, we’re building AI plants, we’re leading in AI over China and everybody else,” Trump said at a White House event Nov. 6. “When all of these plants start opening, we’re going to have a revolution — a positive revolution — economic revolution like never before.”
The return of manufacturing jobs from abroad “is just starting,” Bessent said Tuesday, citing hiring plans at Boeing Co. and a new rare-earth manufacturing site.
As for cost of living concerns, the Treasury chief said that “we inherited an affordability crisis,” and climbing working-class wages climb will help address the issue.
Trump has been more pointed, lashing out at his party in recent days over lackluster messaging on the economy, which he blamed in part for their string of losses in the election. He’s also pitched some unorthodox ideas, such as $2,000 “dividend” payments to Americans from tariff revenue.
The president has also dismissed the idea that living costs are climbing, saying gasoline prices are down. Last Thursday, he claimed “Thanksgiving dinner under Trump is 25% lower than 2024 Thanksgiving dinner under Biden,” citing a Walmart Inc. measure that counted fewer items in 2025.
“The Democrats ‘affordability’ issue is DEAD! STOP LYING!!!” he posted on social media.