Amid Partisan Finger-Pointing on Inflation, Voters Say a Few Different Entities Have a Lot of Power Over Rising Prices

With inflation continuing to hover around40-year highsand the Federal Reserve movingmore aggressively to raise interest rates,立法者过道两边的pointing fingers over the stubbornly high rise in consumer prices. A new Morning Consult/Politicosurveyindicates that voters are mostly buying what both Republicans and Democrats are selling.

What the numbers say

• More than a third of voters said the president of the United States possesses “a lot” of control over managing inflation — a message Republican lawmakers have hammered President Joe Biden with for months. Nearly equal shares said the same for the Federal Reserve, Congress and large corporations; Biden earlier this year attempted toconnect rising prices to anticompetitive behaviorsfrom big companies.
• Republicans and Democrats largely see eye to eye on which entities they believe have the power to manage inflation, with two major exceptions: 55% of GOP voters think the president has “a lot” of control over rising prices, compared with just 25% of Democrats. And 42% of Democrats see large companies as having a lot of power in controlling inflation, compared to just 22% of Republicans who say the same.
• Voters may ultimately be looking to the Federal Reserve to get rising prices under control. Three in 4 voters said the Fed has “a lot” or “some” control over managing inflation, while an essentially equal share said the same for Congress.
• Voters are slightly more likely to say congressional Republicans have a better plan to fix inflation (43%) than Democratic lawmakers (38%). About 3 in 5 voters blame the Biden administration’s policies for inflation, and just over half say limited competition among large companies is to blame. Both figures have held steady since Morning Consult/Politico began tracking the question.

The May 13-16, 2022,surveywas conducted among a representative sample of 2,005 registered voters, with an unweighted margin of error of plus or minus 2 percentage points.