Roughly two-thirds of Americans reported higher household expenses than in March 2020, an indication that inflation continues to impact Americans despite wage growth, according to a new poll released on Thursday.
In a poll conducted this month by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research, 67 percent of Americans polled said their household expenses were higher than they were on March 1, 2020, compared 26 percent who said their household expenses were about the same.
The poll found that 6 percent of Americans polled said their household expenses were lower than they were on March 1, 2020.
A majority of Americans also said they experienced higher prices than usual in recent months when it came to groceries (85 percent), gas (85 percent), electricity (57 percent), holiday gifts (58 percent) and services (62 percent.)
In the case of appliances, only 37 percent of respondents said they experienced higher prices for those products than usual in recent months while 51 percent said they did not purchase those items.
On the topic of household income, half of Americans polled said their household income was about the same as it was on March 1, 2020, compared to 24 percent who said their household income was higher than in that period.
About 26 percent of Americans polled said their household income was lower than it was in March 2020.
According to data from the Labor Department released on Wednesday, wages increased in October at an annual rate of 5 percent as demand for workers reached a peak and 11 million job openings were posted by businesses that month.
The data comes amid low polling numbers for President Biden driven, in part, by inflation. Inflation reached a 30-year high in October.
The consumer price index (CPI), which tracks inflation for a range of staple goods and services, rose 0.9 percent in the month of October and 6.2 percent in the 12-month period ending in the same month.
The AP-NORC poll found that 57 percent of Americans disapprove of how Biden is handling the economy compared to 41 percent who approve.
The AP-NORC poll was conducted between Dec. 2 and Dec. 7 and surveyed 1,089 adults. The margin of sampling error was plus or minus 4.1 percentage points with a 95 percent confidence level.