Voters say US already in recession, contrary to Biden's claims

Voters aren't buying President Joe Biden's excuses, with the majority of registered voters saying they believe the economy has entered a recession and that the newly minted Inflation Reduction Act will not help combat inflation, a new poll shows.

According to the poll conducted for NBC News, 68 percent of voters say the economy is in a recession while just 27 percent say it is not.

In July, Biden said that the US is not in a recession. "Both Chairman Powell and many of the significant banking personnel and economists say we're not in recession," he said, after his administration changed the definition of a recession to be more dependent on unemployment numbers, an area where the US is currently doing fine. The old definition stated that a recession is underway when two consecutive quarters show declining GDP.

On top of this, the Consumer Price Index shows that inflation hit a 40-year high of 9.1 percent in June before receding to 8.5 percent in July.

Biden's Inflation Reduction Act hasn't convinced voters that the future will look much better, with the bill even upsetting the public after it was discovered that the IRS would receive $80 billion to fund the hiring of approximately 87,000 new agents.

Registered voters were nearly evenly split when asked about the new Act, with 35 percent saying that it would a negative impact on them, and 36 percent saying that it would have no effect.

The poll also showed that Americans were even split when asked on the generic ballot for midterm elections. 47 percent prefer a Republican candidate for Congress, while 45 percent say they will vote Democrat this fall.

The poll also showed that 58 percent of voters say that America's best years are behind it, while just 35 percent say the best is yet to come.

The NBC News survey was conducted from Aug. 12-16, 2022, with a margin of error of plus or minus 3.10 percentage points.