Americans are finally feeling better about the economy

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After months of gloom, Americans are finally starting to feel better about the economy and more resigned to inflation.

Consumer sentiment, which hit rock bottom in June, has begun inching up in recent weeks. Gas prices are down. Decades-high inflation appears to be easing. And at the same time, Americans are making small changes — buying meat in bulk, for example, or shifting more of their shopping to discount chains — suggesting that many families are learning to deal with higher prices. …

Although inflation is still a top priority for U.S. voters in the run-up to the midterm elections, the share of Americans who say it is their biggest concern has fallen. Some 30 percent of Americans say rising prices are their No. 1 voting issue, down from 37 percent in July, according to a new NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist poll. CONTINUED

Abha Bhattarai, Washington Post

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William Galston on the Politics of Abortion After Dobbs, the 2022 Midterms, and Beyond

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How has the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade affected the course of the 2022 midterm elections? How has it affected the standing of the two political parties? To discuss these questions, we are joined by Brookings Institution Senior Fellow William Galston. According to Galston, the galvanizing effect of the Dobbs decision on Democratic voters has eaten into the advantage the out-of-power party typically has in an off-year election. Swing voters who view Republicans as too far from the mainstream on abortion, and other issues, threaten to upend GOP hopes of a “Red Wave” in November. At the same time, Galston reflects on the Democrats own vulnerabilities, particularly on cultural issues, which could hurt their electoral chances in November and beyond.

Conversations with Bill Kristol

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How inflation hurts approval

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Inflation is undeniably the problem of the hour. Prices are still historically high, and people are still feeling the pinch, when it comes to rent, food, and gas, all the essentials.

President Biden is not doing well on this pressing issue. Even in the wake of the historic Inflation Reduction Act, this still presents significant weaknesses for him and the Democrats as the midterms heat up.

Below, we breakdown how presidential approval changes over time, inflation’s impact on approval, and what this means for Biden. CONTINUED

Clifford Young & Sarah Feldman, Ipsos

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Parents Beg to Differ With Cataclysmic Views of Schools

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The pandemic’s long-term impact on the education of American schoolchildren is, by definition, not going to be known for many years. In the short term, however, recent headlines have suggested the impact has been quite negative. News reports have highlighted the results of the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) tests, which showed that nine-year-olds’ average scores declined five points in reading and seven points in math from 2020 to 2022. …

One might expect that parents of school-aged children would have become much less satisfied with their own children’s education over the past two years. Many parents were affected by the discombobulation caused by school closures and the need to make alternative arrangements for kids’ learning. And now, there is evidence that nine-year-olds lost ground on reading and math.

But surprisingly, parents appear to be just as satisfied with the quality of their kids’ educations now as they were before the pandemic. CONTINUED

Frank Newport, Gallup

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U.S. Business Sector Average Rating Worst Since 2008

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Americans’ average positive rating of 25 U.S. business and industry sectors that drive the nation’s economy has fallen to its lowest point since the Great Recession. The latest average positive reading of 36% marks a nine-percentage-point decline since 2020, including a three-point dip during the past year. These declines coincide with Americans’ lower confidence in the nation’s institutions and its economy amid struggles brought on by high inflation. CONTINUED

Megan Brenan, Gallup

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What the Student-Loan Debate Overlooks

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A core conservative critique of President Joe Biden’s executive action on student-debt forgiveness is that the plan requires blue-collar Americans to subsidize privileged children idly contemplating gender studies or critical race theory at fancy private colleges.

That idea, articulated by Senators Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio, among others, aims to portray the GOP as the party of working Americans and Democrats as the champions of the smug, well-educated elite. But it fundamentally misrepresents who’s attending college now, where they are enrolled, and the reasons so many young people are graduating with unsustainable debt.

Many factors have contributed to the explosion in student debt, but one dynamic is almost always overlooked: the erosion of the commitment to affordable public higher education as an engine for upward mobility that benefits the entire community. CONTINUED

Ronald Brownstein, The Atlantic

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