A new poll found that more Americans are unhappy with President Donald Trump’s stances on the economy and cost of living, with almost twice as many saying the president has helped raise prices rather than lowering them.
In a Yahoo/YouGov poll conducted Nov. 21-24, 49% of respondents said Trump’s actions since taking office for his second term in January have raised prices instead of cutting them. That’s a nearly two-to-one ratio to the 24% who said he’s done more to lower costs.
The survey also found more Americans (38%) now blame Trump more for inflation than his predecessor, former President Joe Biden (31%), despite the now-president campaigning on the economy during his successful 2024 presidential bid.
The survey of 1,684 U.S. adults has a margin of error of ±3 percentage points. It comes the same month as Democrats pulled off several major victories across the country in the Nov. 4 elections by focusing on affordability platforms.
The president’s approval rating in the poll was at 40%, with 56% disapproving. That aligns with other recent surveys measuring how Americans view Trump’s job performance. In a New York Times daily polling average on Nov. 30, Trump had a 41% approval rating and a 56% disapproval number. RealClearPolitics’ Nov. 30 average is similar, at a 42% approval and 55% disapproval.
President Donald Trump holds a signed executive order on tariffs, in the Rose Garden at the White House in Washington, D.C., U.S., April 2, 2025.
More: Trump faces cost-of-living criticism in new poll as Democrats’ 2026 stock rises
Among four key issues included in the Yahoo/YouGov survey, the largest number of respondents disapproved of the president’s handling of cost of living, with 63% disapproving and 31% approving. That was followed by the economy at 58% disapproving. When is comes to the Trump administration’s handling of investigations into accused sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein, 54% said they disapproved.
Additionally 60% of Americans in the survey said inflation is getting worse, rivaling the highest levels of discontent on the issue during the last two years of Biden’s presidency. Seventeen percent say inflation is getting better.
People shop during Black Friday sales, a post Thanksgiving shopping frenzy that attracts throngs of bargain hunters to stores, at the Roosevelt Field mall in Garden City, New York, U.S., November 28, 2025.
While inflation is down from COVID-era spikes, figures climbed in September in the most recent reports. Consumer prices increased in September 3% from a year earlier, slightly up from 2.9% in August, according to the Labor Department’s Consumer Price Index, a measure of goods and services costs across the country.
Consumer sentiment, which measures how Americans are feeling about costs, also took a dive heading into the holiday season. The University of Michigan Surveys of Consumers on Nov. 21 said its Consumer Sentiment Index stands at 51 – hovering near its record low of 50 in June 2022.
In the new polling, over three-quarters of respondents (79%) said they feel they are paying more for the same goods and services compared to a few years ago. Seventy-two percent rated the state of the American economy as either “fair” or “poor.” A majority, at 53%, think the economy is getting worse.
More: What is Donald Trump’s approval rating? See latest polls on economy
One of Trump’s signature policy moves in his first year, the implementation of far-reaching import tariffs, also scored low in the survey.
Tariffs have done more harm than good to the economy in the short- and long-term, according to many of the survey respondents. Fifty-two percent said they’ve done more immediate harm, and 43% said they’ve had longer term negative effects. In comparison, 26% said they have done short-term good, and 32% said they have had positive long-term effects.
Over three-quarters approved of Trump’s recent roll-back of tariffs on products like coffee, beef and bananas.
Contributing: Rachel Barber, USA TODAY.
Kathryn Palmer is a politics reporter for USA TODAY. You can reach her at [email protected] and on X @KathrynPlmr.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: More Americans say Trump has raised prices: New poll, approval rating
