Most Americans didn’t notice benefits of tax cut, says pollster

Pollster Rob Griffin said Thursday that most Americans didn’t notice benefits from President Trump’s sweeping tax cut because of its timing during the holiday season.

“It’s not really that big of a change, it also happened right around when you might get raises right around the New Year anyway, so the number of people who even noticed that this actually occurred is actually not that high,” Griffin told Hill.TV co-host Joe Concha on “What America’s Thinking.”

Griffin, a research director at Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI), suggested timing could have motivated Republicans’ decision to make immigration, rather than the economy, the party’s top issue going into Tuesday’s midterm elections.

“It’s one of those things where the Republican Party went in thinking ‘People are going to be feeling it every paycheck, it’s going to be a constant reminder.’ It’s actually hard to notice $20 on a paycheck for most people,” he said.

Trump’s Tax Cuts and Jobs Act lowered the corporate tax rate from 35 percent to 21 percent. Shortly after the bill’s passage in December, a string of corporations, including AT&T, announced that they were giving one-time bonuses to employees as a direct result of the new tax law. 

The tax reform bill also lowered individual tax rates overall, at least in the short term. The tax cuts for individuals are expected to decrease gradually, ending altogether by 2025.

Still, few midterm voters said they gained anything from the tax law. 

Less than one-third — 28 percent — of Americans said the Republican tax cuts benefitted them, while 45% said they had no effect, according to an ABC News exit poll released a day after the midterm elections.

Ultimately, the top issue driving voters to the poll was health care.

An AP voter survey found that 26 percent of Americans named health care the most important issue facing the country, while immigration trailed closely behind at 23 percent.

– Tess Bonn