Joe Biden faces renewed election threat from inflation

WASHINGTON

He wanted the U.S presidential election to be about "Bidenomics." Instead, it risks being about "Bidenflation."

Joe Biden faces one of the biggest threats to his hopes of beating Donald Trump from rising prices that are hitting Americans in the wallet.

The cost of living is rising more quickly again, just when the 81-year-old Democrat thought he had put the issue behind him to get a clear run at November's vote.

Figures last week showed U.S. consumer inflation accelerating to 3.5 percent in the year to March, the second straight month it has risen. Gas prices and rent contributed to half the rise.

Bill Clinton's 1992 election campaign famously said that "it's the economy, stupid", and 32 years later it appears that it inflation may be a deciding issue.

The Wall Street Journal called it Biden's "most stubborn political problem" while the Financial Times wondered if it could "sink Biden."

"How inflation evolves between now and the presidential election could factor heavily in the outcome," said Ryan Sweet, chief U.S. economist at Oxford Economics.

The timing couldn't be worse for Biden, coming just as his campaign seemed to be turning things around.

Recent polls showed him pulling back even with Trump, while the United States not only avoided a recession after the COVID pandemic but now shows the strongest growth of any major global economy.

Most importantly inflation, which has dogged his administration since peaking at 9 percent in 2022, had been falling for months.

Biden's problem is that voters just aren't always feeling what the figures show to be a booming economy.

Big economic numbers don't matter to Americans when they are hurting every time they fill up their cars with gas, struggle to feed their families when they go to the supermarket or wonder how they will pay the rent.

Polls repeatedly show that despite concerns on democracy after Trump's divisive presidency, voters still rate the real estate tycoon more highly on economic matters than Biden.

The latest inflation figures are hitting consumer confidence, according to a survey by the University of Michigan.

"There are some concerns that the inflation slowdown may have stalled," Joanne Hsu, who led the study, told AFP.

Biden sought to defend his record last week.

"We're better situated than we were when we took office, where inflation was skyrocketing," he said during a press conference with the visiting Japanese prime minister on April 10.

But inflation poses another problem as it delays a cut in interest rates by the U.S. Federal Reserve, something homeowners with mortgages want to see.

Interest rates are currently at a 23-year high as the U.S. central bank hopes that the high cost of borrowing will encourage consumers to save instead of spend, thereby reducing demand and bringing prices down.