Americans’ disapproval of Congress is at 60%, among the highest for the Biden presidency

Linley SandersData Journalist
July 21, 2022, 9:01 PM GMT+0

Far more Americans disapprove of Congress than approve of it — which is not unusual for the legislative branch but does mark a steady increase in frustration toward the Democratic-controlled Congress during Joe Biden's presidency. Three in five Americans (60%) disapprove of how Congress is handling its job, according to the latest Economist/YouGov poll.

Nearly half of Democrats (48%) now disapprove of how Congress is handling its job — a number that has remained steady in the last month but is among Democrats' highest levels of disapproval of how the Democratic-controlled Congress is handling its job during the Biden presidency. Majorities of Independents (61%) and Republicans (74%) disapprove of how Congress is handling its job.

The last several weeks of surveys have shown the highest disapproval numbers yet for how Congress is handling its job during the Biden presidency — but certainly not the highest numbers in Economist/YouGov data going back to the start of Barack Obama's presidency in 2009.

Congress’s highest job-disapproval numbers came in the fall of 2013, around the same time as the 2013 federal government shutdown. At that point, about 74% of Americans disapproved of how Congress was handling its job. Disapproval also reached high numbers in fall 2020, around the same time that a third stimulus bill stalled in Congress and delayed relief checks to qualifying Americans.

– Carl Bialik and Kathy Frankovic contributed to this article

This poll was conducted on July 16 - 19, 2022 among 1,500 U.S. adult citizens. See the toplines and crosstabs from this Economist/YouGov poll

Image: Photo by Quick PS on Unsplash

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