April 29 marks the first 100 days of Donald Trump’s second presidential term. It has not been smooth for him or taxpayers.
The Republican led House and Senate have been working on the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, the party’s massive 2017 tax code overhaul bill that has a Dec. 31, 2025, end date for most individual tax provisions. But there’s been no action to date on what will happen to the law.
Still, there’s been a lot going on that affects the economy and the federal agencies and programs funded by our tax dollars. Those Trump administration actions have been the focus of polling questions as the 100 day mark neared.
Major news outlets have conducted their own polls. I tend to follow the data collected by the Pew Research Center, a nonpartisan think tank that regularly conducts public opinion polling, demographic research, content analysis, and other data-driven social science research. The Washington, D.C., organization is a subsidiary of the Pew Charitable Trusts.
In the case of the approaching Trump 47 milestone, Pew’s findings tend to agree with other recent public sentiment samples.
The overall news for the White House is not good.
Overall unhappiness increasing: Forty percent of Americans approve of how Trump is doing his job. That’s a decline of 7 percentage points from February.
And while Trump’s staunchest supporters continue to give him high marks, Pew found that several of his key policy actions are viewed more negatively than positively by the public.
The Pew survey, conducted a week after Trump’s April 2 announcement of wide-ranging tariffs on nearly all U.S. trading partners, found that 59 percent of Americans disapprove of the administration’s tariff increases, while 39 percent approve.
Government cuts, largely under the purview of the Elon Musk-created Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), also were viewed negatively. Fifty-five percent in the Pew poll said they disapprove of the cuts to federal departments and agencies, while 44 percent approve.
Trump’s use of executive authority also comes in for criticism. Fifty-one percent of U.S. adults told Pew he is setting too much policy via executive order. Twenty-seven percent say he is doing about the right amount through executive orders. Five percent say they would like more orders from the Oval Office.
“It’s the economy, stupid:” Part of the current administration’s public perception problem is due to Trump’s promises when he was on the campaign trail.
While he didn’t invoke the famous James Carville quotable political truism, Trump did repeatedly promise to ease economic concerns “on day one.” Many, however, see their personal economic situations at best no better than under the Biden administration, and in some cases worse.
A large number of consumers also are worried that one promise sort of kept, the implementation of tariffs, will make things worse.
Pew found that overall, Americans continue to rate economic conditions negatively, with just 23 percent calling them excellent or good. That’s a tick lower than the 24 percent who did so in February. Forty-two percent say they are only fair, and 34 percent rate the economy as poor.
Prices of food and consumer goods, housing, and energy remain top economic concerns. These continue to rank higher on the public’s list of economic concerns than the availability of jobs or the state of the stock market.
And the longer-term outlook right now doesn’t bode well for the White House. Pew found that the public’s expectations for the economy a year from now have soured somewhat.
Forty-five percent of Americans say they expect economic conditions to be worse a year from now, up from 37 percent in February. Another 36 percent expect the economy will be better in a year, while 19 percent say it will be about the same as today.
Of course, surveys are simply snapshots of what people are thinking (or feeling) at a certain point in time. Things, and public opinion, can and will change as political moves are made.
But right now, 100 days into his second term, Trump and his administration are facing challenges, not only on the actual policy implementation front, but in convincing Americans that the White House actions are or will be good for them.
You also might find these items of interest:
- National parks’ substantial economic contributions
- Rapid-fire IRS leadership changes during tax filing week
- TIGTA investigating DOGE and White House incursion into IRS
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