Philly Leader

Inflation has been on the rise and recently hit 40-year highs.

A recent NBC News poll showed that 38% of Americans blame President Joe Biden and his policies for this issue.

When asked in the poll who or what people blame the most for the rising cost of goods and services, or inflation, 38% blamed Biden, 28% blamed COVID-19, 23% blamed corporations raising prices and 6% blamed the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Of the 38% of Americans who blame Biden, 37% identify with the poor/working class, 39% identify with the middle class, and 39% identify with the upper class. 

The poll was taken from March 18-22 and surveyed 1,000 adults including 790 registered voters. It was conducted in conjunction with Hart Research Associates and Public Opinion Strategies.

Republicans like Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy have been vocal about their disapproval of the Biden administration.

"Mr. President: You can't spend America out of an inflation crisis," McCarthy tweeted March 31.

While Biden has blamed Russian President Vladimir Putin and the COVID-19 pandemic for the record high inflation numbers in the U.S., a study by Pew Research shows that inflation steadily increased over the past few months, before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. According to a Fox News report, on March 14, Biden maintained that rising prices have “nothing to do” with his policies. He also said he would “fix it.”

“Make no mistake, inflation is largely the fault of Vladimir Putin,” Biden said in the Fox report. “It has nothing to do with the American Rescue Plan.”

According to a March 10 Bureau of Labor and Statistics report, inflation rose 7.3% over the past year, which was the largest increase since 1990.

The BLS report added that prices in the Philadelphia-Camden-Wilmington area increased 1.5% since December 2021. Over the last year, the Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers (CPI-U) increased 7.3%. Food prices also increased 8.2%.

The CPI data shows that increases in indexes for gasoline, shelter and food were the largest contributors to a seasonally adjusted “all items” increase, according to the report. Energy prices spiked 24.4%.

Regional Commissioner Alexandra Hall Bovee noted that the “February increase was primarily due to a 1.2% jump in the all items less food and energy index where nearly every major component increased since December,” the BLS report stated. “A 4.7% increase in the energy index and a 2.1% rise in the food index accounted for the remaining third of the overall increase.”