There is a reason Republicans spent so much time talking about inflation in 2024: Though it may have slowed, it is still the top worry for Americans, with a majority “very worried” it will affect their family finances.
In 2024 the American Family Survey continued a practice of asking about people’s economic worries. The pattern of worries reflects events of recent years well. Inflation is unquestionably the largest worry on the horizon with 55% of the public saying they are “very worried.” No other category tops a majority
In fact, if you combine the “very worried” and “somewhat worried” categories, 88% of the public is worried. This is as close to universal as things get in survey research. The other issues just do not see the same level of concern. This is, in most respects, a reflection of the actual economy. Though the rate of inflation has decreased substantially, prices are still high. Other concerns like interest rates and unemployment are less likely to be areas of concern, and public attitudes reflect that.
Inflation is also generally a universal concern. Race, church attendance, gender, family status and other variables tend not to affect the percentage worrying — though there are two exceptions to this general pattern. First, it is worth knowing that though all income categories are concerned about inflation, the relatively well-off (incomes over $100,000 per year) are the least worried.
Thus, while it is everyone’s concern, the groups feeling most affected tend to be middle- and low-income groups. This is intuitive as resources to deal with inflation are ready to hand for those in the top income category. Rising ground beef prices are harder to absorb on an income of $35,000 per year.
There is one other demographic that affects worries over inflation, and it is slightly different: partisanship. A strong majority (68%) of Republicans are very worried, while only 41% of Democrats fit this description. It is not that inflation is somehow targeting Republicans; they are just more motivated to give this response. And it is clear that the GOP was responding to this in the election by harping on inflation at a record pace. The Wesleyan Media Project reported that inflation was among the most talked about issues: “[Trump] has mentioned the economy, inflation, and gas prices in nearly all of his 40,000 ad airings (as of early September).” That was a far higher rate than he discussed immigration, as a point of comparison.
One well-known theory of survey responses is that people give answers that are near the “top of their head” — a metaphor for people picking relatively simple and easy-to-consider answers. And that is probably what is happening here. Republicans, who have thought a lot about ways in which the country is going wrong (under Democrats, naturally), have inflation as a problem near the top of their minds. Democrats, who are far less likely to worry about the state of the country right now, are simply less likely to be concerned about this problem and therefore less likely to give a response concerned with inflation. With Donald Trump now in the White House, we could expect the pattern to flip.
While it is important to understand the bias in people’s responses, we note for the record that Democrats still clearly think inflation is the most important economic problem out there. For instance, only 22% are “very worried” about unemployment. Only 27% are similarly worried about interest rates, and just 20% are similarly concerned about the national debt. Whatever biases exist in the responses, inflation unambiguously remains the top economic concern for most Americans.
Political scientists will debate the causal impact of this inflation over the next few years. Measuring just how much it may have swung the election is no simple matter, but there is little doubt that it was far from ideal for the Harris campaign, and Democrats generally, in 2024.
As a check on the issue, we also asked the question in a slightly different way: “During the next year or two, do you expect that your household income will keep up with prices or fall behind prices?” People could answer that they expected their incomes to keep up with prices, they expected them to fall behind, or they didn’t know. Their answers were quite similar in tone to their answers about what worries them. Just 23% of Americans think their income will keep up. In contrast, 51% of Americans think their personal income will fall behind.
We wondered if the answers would vary by marital status or family arrangements, but found only weak evidence of that. Fifty-four percent of parents think they will fall behind, and 46% of non-parents think the same. This difference of 8 points bears watching. It may be the case that families are slightly harder hit by inflation, but the difference not only disappears when one controls for income, it actually reverses: 53% of low-income parents think their income will fall behind prices, and 59% of people without kids have the same fear. Income is what matters here.
There is a lesson here for anyone running in the future: Politicians who are not worried about inflation — even though the rates of change are down — are a bit out of step with their constituents. It is tempting to believe this is a problem we are past, but the public does not agree. True, there are partisan biases in this data (as in many other forms of data), but the sentiment is a near-universal one and the savvy consumer of public opinion data knows this is an issue that should not be ignored — in 2024 and likely in the future as well.
By Christopher F. Karpowitz and Jeremy C. Pope with research assistance by Emmo Thomas
METHODOLOGY NOTE
Between August 22-29, 2024, YouGov interviewed 3,245 respondents who were then matched down to a sample of 3,000 to produce the final dataset. The respondents were matched to a sampling frame on gender, age, race, and education. 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 weights were then post-stratified on 2020 presidential vote choice as well as a four-way stratification of gender, age (4 categories), race (4 categories), and education (4 categories), to produce the final weight. The overall margin of error is +/- 2%.