So This Is ‘Bidenomics?’ Americans Are More Than Twice As Likely To Hold Negative Views of the Economy
Even President Joe Biden prepares to deliver a speech in Chicago on Wednesday touting “Bidenonomics,” far more Americans think the economy is doing poorly than think the economy is doing well.
A Gallup poll released on Wednesday showed Americans’ assessments of the U.S. economy have improved significantly in the past month but remain deeply negative. Gallup’s Economic Confidence Index ropse from -43 in May to -32 in June. That is the best score since January 2022, when the index registered at -22.
The Gallup index has a theoretical range of -100, which would indicate that all Americans rate current conditions as poor and say the economy is getting worse, to +100, which would indicate that all Americans rate conditions as excellent or good and say the economy is improving. The index has been in negative territory for all but two months of Biden’s presidency. It fell to -58 last summer, the worst reading since the Great Recession and the financial crisis.
The latest survey was taken just after House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) reached a deal with the White House to lift the limit on the federal government’s debt. The risks associated with a debt ceiling crisis appear to have weighed on economic confidence.
Americans are more than twice as likely to hold a negative view of the economy than a positive view. Just 19 percent of the economy rate current economic conditions as excellent or good while 44 percent rate the economy as poor. This brings the current conditions gauge to a score of -30. Thirty-seven percent of Americans say economic conditions are “only fair.”
The economic outlook part of the index showed more substantial improvement, likely a reflection of the resolution of the debt ceiling negotiations. Still, the share saying conditions are getting worse is more than twice the share who say they are getting better.4
Just 27 percent of Americans say the economy is improving and 66 percent say it is getting worse. A month early, 20 percent said the economy was getting better and 76 percent said it was getting worse.
Even Democrats are barely optimistic about the economy, with just a +5 score on the confidence index. Republicans are highly negative, at a -65 index score, up 14 points from a month ago. Independents are at -35, up 13 points from a month earlier.
Democrats’ evaluations of current economic conditions were. They divide evenly as to whether the economy is getting better or worse, at 46 percent and 47 percent respectively. Thirty-four percent of Democrats say current conditions are excellent or good and 23 percent say they are poor.
More than twice as many independents say the economy is getting worse—67 percent—than say it is getting better—26 percent.
Seventy-six percent of Republicans say the economy is getting worse, an improvement from last month’s 90 percent.
Fraudsters Stole More Than $200 Billion From Two COVID Relief Programs, Watchdog Estimates
Small Business Administration inspector general still has tens of thousands of pandemic relief fraud tips to pursue
Fraudsters and swindlers stole more than $200 billion from just two government programs aimed at providing relief during the coronavirus pandemic, according to a federal watchdog estimate.
A Small Business Administration inspector general released the numbers Tuesday, finding that "fraudulent actors" stole more than $136 billion from the Economic Injury Disaster Loan Program and $64 billion from the Paycheck Protection Program, two government initiatives that worked to keep small businesses afloat during the pandemic. Those figures mark a whopping 17 percent of all funds issued under the two programs, with a third of all Economic Injury Disaster Loan Program funds being stolen, according to the report.
While fraud in federal spending programs is nothing new, the numbers mark a substantial increase in past projections of stolen funds under the two initiatives. The Small Business Administration inspector general previously estimated that roughly $106 billion was stolen from the Economic Injury Disaster Loan Program and Paycheck Protection Program, according to the Associated Press.
The race to get COVID funds out the door left federal pandemic relief programs ripe for fraud—the government lost roughly 10 percent of all pandemic relief funds to fraud and improper payments, according to an Associated Press estimate, and those figures will likely continue to grow. Inspector General Mike Ware earlier this month told the outlet that he has tens of thousands of "actionable leads into pandemic relief fraud," leads that would take a century to sort through.
"We will continue to assess fraud until we're finished with the investigations on these things," Ware said.
Scammers, in some cases, used fake Social Security numbers from dead people and federal prisoners to exploit COVID unemployment relief. The Biden administration in 2021 and 2022 paid dead people almost a billion dollars in improper payments, a June Free Beacon report revealed. In one case, a Missouri man "collected $200,000 in checks for his dead mother for 26 years before the government found out, while a Michigan man collected $500,000 under the name of a dead relative," fiscal watchdog group OpenTheBooks found.
In other cases, the Small Business Administration disbursed funds to seedy businesses. It sent $117,000 to six massage parlors that were later busted for sex crimes, the Washington Free Beacon reported last year. Now, former executive director of the Pandemic Response Accountability Committee Bob Westbrooks is hammering the federal government for its failure to uphold the "integrity" of its pandemic programs.
"The government can walk and chew gum at the same time," Westbrooks told the Associated Press. "They should have put basic fraud controls in place to verify people's identity and to make sure targeted relief was getting into the right hands."
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