In its 10-year history, the American Family Survey has always asked about people’s economic concerns. But the question is perhaps more important than usual in a year when citizens are poised to elect a president. So what’s the most important thing about how families view their finances and the economy in general?

“Inflation” is the clear answer, with more than 55% of adults who responded saying they were very worried. Nothing else comes close.

Add in the number who say they are somewhat concerned about inflation, and the number rises to 88 percent of respondents — “as universal as things get in survey research,” write Brigham Young University political science professors Chris Karpowitz and Jeremy C. Pope, who were the investigators of the survey during its entire decade. It is well ahead of the number who say they are “very concerned” about rising tax bills (43%), interest rates (35%), national debt (33%) and unemployment and a lack of government assistance, which both appear in 25%

The American Family Survey is a nationally representative study conducted by YouGov for BYU’s Wheatley Institute, the BYU Center for the Study of Elections and Democracy, and the Deseret News. YouGov conducted the survey between August 22-29 of 3,000 respondents and has a margin of error of plus or minus 2 percentage points.

The question is: Will people vote — or have they already — based on their concerns about inflation? And how much the president actually influences inflation, said Pope, who is also a constitutional government fellow at the Wheatley Institute.

In the poll, there was no close second, and when the results were analyzed for factors that might influence how people feel — demographics like race, church attendance, gender, marital status — most didn’t change what what people were worried about, which spanned income levels, although those with household incomes above $100,000 were the least worried about inflation compared to those in the middle and lower income groups. As the survey report noted, “Rising ground beef prices are harder to absorb on an income of $35,000 a year.”

The survey found that less than half with household incomes above $100,000 are very concerned (43%) about inflation, while nearly 40% are still somewhat concerned. But about 90 percent of those who do less are at least somewhat worried — and about 60 percent said they were very worried. The “not worried” group includes 17% of the higher income group and 10% to 11% of the lower income groups.

The full 2024 American Family Survey will be released in early December, but the economic findings were released earlier because of the election. Now is the time to look at the factors that influence how people vote – and the survey makes it clear that the cost of living is the most important.

Are you worried in a partisan way?

The inflation rate has actually fallen recently, but Pope believes people may be feeling it more because of the prolonged period of low inflation that came before inflation picked up after the COVID-19 pandemic.

In any election year, partisanship, unsurprisingly, matters. And it’s big in this question too. Republicans cite inflation as a concern at much higher rates (68%) than Democrats (41%). It doesn’t mean Republicans and Democrats are affected differently by inflation or prices, Pope and Karpowitz told the Deseret News. Rather, Republicans are “just more motivated to give that answer.”

Pope said the fact that Democrat Joe Biden is in the White House is causing some Republicans to criticize the current economy, while if a Republican were in the White House they might focus on other issues.

Still, Pope and Karpowitz said the poll results make it clear that Democrats also believe inflation is the top economic concern. Only 22% of Democrats are very worried about unemployment, while 27% are very worried about interest rates and only 20% about the national debt, even though some economists and elected officials have made it clear that this is the economic problem of our time.

“All the economic data says that inflation has come down considerably,” said Karpowitz, who is also a senior scholar at the Center for the Study of Elections and Democracy. “But its effects persist, and it appears to be a significant concern for most Americans, and more worrisome to them than a variety of other economic issues. I think that’s pretty remarkable.”

To check for inflation as a main concern, the survey also asked whether people thought their household incomes would keep up with prices over the next two years. Only 23% believe they will keep up, while more than half believe their personal incomes will fall behind.

Parents were more likely than the childless to predict they would be left behind – an eight-point difference that the researchers said “bears are watching”.

Karpowitz calls it “a very common thing that we see especially during elections, when people are reminded of their partisan loyalties, and what happens is that people see the economy somewhat through those lenses.”

Republicans have pointed to the negative aspects of the economy, and Democrats have said inflation is down and economic indicators look pretty good, he said.

Does the President Influence Inflation?

Neither Pope nor Karpowitz sees a strong case for blaming inflation on a president, regardless of political affiliation. Inflation can result from supply chain issues or a number of other issues, such as the amount of money spent during COVID under two different presidents of two different parties. “If I had to pick one institution, it would be the Federal Reserve, but I guess it’s been difficult to account for inflation coming out of COVID,” Pope said.

Still, inflation affects families and “it would be a mistake to think it’s anything else,” he added. People are feeling the pinch when grocery shopping and trying to figure out the other bills that have gone up. It’s harder to pay your electric bill and cover the cost of gas.

Karpowitz agrees that presidents don’t have the power to make inflation go away. “He would have if he could. It is never in their interest to have inflation,” he said.

Other economic concerns

It’s somewhat surprising that people aren’t more concerned about the national debt because it’s unlikely that it can be solved without some tax increases, which will hurt families’ pockets, Pope said. At some point – “It could be 2025 or 2045” – he predicts a debt crisis will occur “and people will be scared”. He also sees other crises such as international wars and climate problems that “can’t be solved if our fiscal house is not in order.”

While raising taxes was pretty far down the poll’s list of economic concerns, Karpowitz said it was interesting because both Kamala Harris and Donald Trump said they would look at tax cuts, in the case of Harris for low- and middle-income Americans. . “It’s certainly possible that higher-income Americans could see taxes go up under the Harris administration, but there’s nothing concrete about any of those plans right now,” Pope said.

He called the level of concern on that front “interesting” because “no one is really proposing this for the vast majority of Americans.”

Karpowitz noted that high interest rates were low on the list in the survey, but matter a lot to people carrying debt. “Republicans and Democrats are motivated to see the current trends in the economy somewhat differently,” he said.