In a boost for Joe Biden, 37% of respondents to CNBC's latest economic survey approve of President Joe Biden's job handling of the economy — a slight rise from previous months.
That is compared to 58% of American adults who disapproved of his job this month. In April, he had a 34% approval rating on the economy and a 62% disapproval rating.
Biden's overall approval rating in this month's poll was not much better. He tallied a 39% approval rating, while 55% disapproved of his performance.
Nearly nine in 10 Americans described the economy as fair or poor last quarter, while that dropped to around eight in 10 currently. Meanwhile, those who viewed it as at least good went up from close to one in 10 to two in 10.
"I think it's some combination of the messaging — of people possibly legitimately starting to think that the economy is not quite as bad anymore," said Hart Research Associates partner Jay Campbell.
According to Campbell, the data shows that Americans generally believe "things are a little less horrible than they have been," with insufficient information available to identify a pattern.
Inflation was the No. 1 issue for respondents, coming in at a plurality of 30% and double any other area of concern.
Respondents also said that the best party to handle both the economy at large and inflation was the Republicans. On the economy at large, Republicans had a16 percentage-point advantage. And on bringing down inflation, they led by 18 points.
"Those are very broad, very important parts of economic confidence. That the Republicans have double-digit leads ... helps to understand and underpin the deficiencies that Biden has in those areas and on the economy broadly,″ said Public Opinion Strategies partner Micah Roberts.
The survey of 1,000 American adults was conducted by Democrat pollster Hart Research Associates and Republican pollster Public Opinion Strategies from July 12 to July 16.
It has a plus or minus 3.1 percentage-point margin of sampling error.
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