Last weekend, the Senate approved a broad bill aimed at fighting climate change, lowering health care costs, and raising taxes on large corporations. Recent polling by the Economist/YouGov finds that by 52% to 32%, Americans support the bill. By even larger margins, they support specific measures included in the bill.
When provided with a brief overview of the bill (but not mentioning its name – the Inflation Reduction Act), half of Americans (52%) say they’re in favor of it, while 31% oppose it. Support for specific components of the bill is even higher, including: allowing Medicare the ability to negotiate drug prices (66% support; 10% oppose), a 15% minimum tax on corporations that earn at least $1 billion (64% support; 18% oppose), and a proposal to cut greenhouse-gas emissions by the year 2030 (53% support; 29% oppose).
While Democrats (81%) are far more likely than Republicans (21%) to support the legislation overall, a large share of Republicans do support specific proposals included in the legislation, including allowing Medicare to negotiate drug prices (60% of Republicans support) and a 15% minimum tax on large corporations (48% of Republicans support).
Despite the bill’s popularity, Americans are skeptical that it will reduce inflation, and many even believe it will cause inflation to rise: 40% say it will increase inflation, 12% say it will decrease it, and 23% say it won’t change it. Even among people who say they support the bill overall, only 19% expect it to reduce inflation.
— Kathy Frankovic and Carl Bialik contributed to this article.
This poll was conducted on August 7 - 9, 2022 among 1,500 U.S. adult citizens. Explore more on the methodology and data for this Economist/YouGov poll.
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