While it’s perfectly true that the third quarter economy, at least in terms of gross domestic product, was stronger than expected and inflation rates have come down, President Biden and his staff are mystified at their continued basement-level economic polls.  

Recent polls show Mr. Biden’s economy is rating at just 21 percent — with 78 percent saying it’s in bad shape. The president is, laughably, blaming the media, but he should blame his own policies.  

Right at the start of his term, he front-loaded massive federal spending, regulation, and his socialist Green New Deal war against fossil fuels. The result was sky-rocketing inflation.  

Now, after two years of root canal interest rate hike tightening by the Federal Reserve, inflation has eased. Yet the legacy of these Bidenomics mistakes lives on. It’s about plunging affordability.  

Here’s an example: according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, real average weekly earnings back in January 2021 were $399. We’re talking about middle-class working folks here.  

Now, in November 2023, that same measure of real average weekly earnings stood at $380 — $19 or 4.7 percent less than three years ago. As if that weren’t bad enough, demoralizing the economy, the level of consumer prices has gone up 17 percent.  

Groceries up 20 percent, gasoline up 34 percent, and electricity up 23 percent. New and used cars are also up around 20 percent. That’s middle-class families losing their purchasing power, thanks to Joe Bidenomics. 

They don’t buy and sell GDP, nor do they live on year-to-year inflation rates. It’s the falling level of wages and the rising level of prices that have caused high anxiety over Mr. Biden’s economic policies. That’s the key point.  

Affordability has dropped significantly over the past three years.  During the Trump years, by the by, of tax cutting, deregulating, and drill baby drill, middle-class family incomes went up at least (pre-pandemic) by $6,000. 

Yet, measured the same way, middle-class incomes fell roughly $4,000 under Bidenomics. There are lots of other issues out there in the economy.  

Despite some recent good news, in the two years post-pandemic, the Biden economy has only averaged 1.7 percent growth. That’s all. 

The consumer price index has definitely slowed year on year to just over 3 percent — and that’s good news — but the fact remains that in the last two post-pandemic years the CPI has averaged 6 percent at an annual rate.  

Consumers continue to lean on credit cards and shave off their savings in order to spend post-Covid, but that game may come to an end sooner than you think.  

The Conference Board’s Index of Leading Economic Indicators has fallen 20 straight months. The Treasury interest rate curve is way upside-down with short rates far above longer rates. Manufacturing has been negative for a year, as has business investment. 

Perhaps more importantly, manufacturing jobs have virtually dried up, even though government jobs have been leading the employment parade for many months.  

Principally, though, it’s the plunging affordability crisis that has plagued Bidenomics from Day One.  

Unless and until he changes that — a feat that will be mighty hard under his current ultra-liberal, big government, collectivist policies — working folks are going to bury him in the polls come November.  

From Mr. Kudlow’s broadcast on Fox Business.