Americans’ concerns about inflation are colored by their political affiliation, but majorities of all groups think trade is good for American families.
One of the most consistent findings of the American Family over the past few years is concern over inflation. It has been top of mind for Americans since the end of COVID pandemic conditions. This year, 53% of Americans are “very worried” about its potential to affect their families.
No other item on our list of economic factors worries Americans like inflation. The two items that come closest are the most similar to inflation: taxes (41%) and tariffs — a specific form of tax on trade (39%). Both items cut into household budgets and make goods and services less affordable — much like inflation.
Despite the clear ways in which inflation is problematic, there is a strong partisan effect, especially when we focus on 2024 and 2025.
Democrats have increased their worry level by 24 percentage points, while Republicans have dropped by 32 percentage points (with independents slightly dropping — probably something close to a realistic picture of inflation’s actual trend). This is a well-known phenomenon to political scientists: Partisans exaggerate or downplay economic conditions depending on how they want the answer to come out for their preferred party, taking their cues from who is in the White House. So a simple change in party control means that surveys get very different results for different administrations.
Even with the change from the Biden to the second Trump administration, inflation and other economic variables are still concerning for many Americans. For instance, the 38% of Republicans who do worry about inflation place it fairly high relative to the other data points noted above. Even Republicans are concerned about what is happening in the economy, but they clearly feel less incentive to explicitly state it. (As a point of comparison: 33% of the GOP is very worried about rising taxes, a very Republican worry). Overall levels of concern suggest that Republicans are worried about inflation, but they may be reluctant to rate their worry as high as before the election.
This pattern also cuts in the other direction: Democrats are probably not quite as worried about inflation in 2025 as they appear, and they were probably downplaying their concerns in 2024.
Partisans may also be treating trade differently.
For instance, just 15% of Republicans are very worried about how tariffs will hit their family. Just one in seven Republicans giving this answer is a remarkably low number relative to the six in 10 Democrats who are worried, but, again, it is likely that this issue is seen primarily through partisan lenses, given the fact that tariffs are championed by President Trump. Republicans do not want to believe that tariffs could possibly hurt them (though since tariffs are really just a specific form of tax, this is obviously inconsistent with the almost four in 10 Republicans who see higher taxes as a worry). Democrats’ concerns are also likely magnified by their opposition to the Trump administration.
What happens when we simply ask about trade generally and get away from the specific policy of tariffs being pushed by the Republican administration at the moment?
Most people favor trade. Overall, just over seven in 10 Americans think it is a good thing, and just 7% believe it is a bad thing. This pattern holds true for most groups. The educated tend to favor trade a bit more than those with only a high school education, and higher income people tend to favor trade more than those with less income. But the groups that are more skeptical of trade do still tend to favor it overall, just less enthusiastically. They are more likely to think it is only a “somewhat good thing” rather than a “very good thing.” But note that in all cases, 10% or fewer believe that it is a bad thing for American families, and majorities consistently favor trade.
The partisan differences should also make Republicans — especially strong supporters of President Trump — nervous. Americans overall like trade and believe it is a good thing for American families even as Republicans are more in favor of tariffs than are Democrats, a reversal over earlier eras. Additional survey questions could likely elicit more worry over trade, but the baseline American opinion is that trade is largely positive. Even if we look only at people who voted for Trump in both 2020 and 2024 and label themselves strong Republicans, 33% responded that trade was a very good thing and an additional 47% responded that it was a somewhat good thing. There is no anti-trade coalition among Americans that is anywhere close to a majority — even the most strongly supportive of Trump and the Republicans have a pro-trade baseline set of opinions.
Looking to the future, these numbers forecast some degree of concern for Republican political fortunes. In addition, the clear second-place for concern among the public is rising taxes — another policy that takes a bite out of people’s income. While Republicans, for now, are not terribly concerned about tariffs, they do clearly like trade, and it is unlikely that they will forgive an anti-trade policy forever. Once household budgets start to take a hit because of higher taxes — in the form of tariffs — the approval of Republicans and President Trump could slide. And in an era where no party wins presidential elections by much more than a whisker and control of the Congress hangs on small margins, that could be enough to give Republicans a lot to deal with in 2026 and 2028.
METHODOLOGY NOTE
Between August 6-18, 2025, YouGov interviewed 3317 nationally representative respondents who were then matched down to a sample of 3000 to produce the final dataset. The respondents were matched to a sampling frame on gender, age, race, and education. The frame was constructed by stratified sampling from the full 2023 American Community Survey (ACS) one-year sample with selection within strata by weighted sampling with replacements (using the person weights on the public use file).
The matched cases were weighted to the sampling frame using propensity scores. The matched cases and the frame were combined and a logistic regression was estimated for inclusion in the frame. The propensity score function included age, gender, race/ethnicity, years of education, region, and home ownership. The propensity scores were grouped into deciles of the estimated propensity score in the frame and post-stratified according to these deciles.
The weights were then post-stratified on 2020 and 2024 presidential vote choice as well as a four-way stratification of gender, age (four categories), race (four categories), and education (four categories) to produce the final weight. The overall margin of error is +/- 2.1%.