Poll: By a 2-to-1 margin, Americans say Trump has done more to raise prices than lower them

One of the primary reasons President Trump won a second term in last year’s election was the perception that the Biden administration had bungled inflation — and that Trump was better equipped to bring prices down.

But a new Yahoo/YouGov poll shows that by a two-to-one margin, Americans believe the president has actually done more to raise prices (49%) than lower them (24%) since returning to office in January.

At a time when 72% of Americans describe the economy as fair or poor and 79% say they’re paying more money than they were a few years ago for the same goods and services, the sense that Trump is making things worse rather than better helps explain why most Americans (56%) continue to disapprove of how he’s handling his job as a president — and why even more (63%) disapprove of his approach to the “cost of living.”

The new survey of 1,684 U.S. adults was conducted from Nov. 21 to Nov. 24 — a few weeks after Democrats running on a message of “affordability” swept all of 2025’s marquee races, from New York to New Jersey to Virginia. At first, Trump responded to his party’s losses by insisting that America has “the greatest economy we’ve ever had” and dismissing voter concerns about an affordability crisis as “a con job by the Democrats.”

“I don’t want to hear about the affordability,” the president said.

Soon, however, Trump pivoted, floating various policies — $2,000 rebate checks, 50-year mortgages, direct health care payments — meant to ease pressure on household budgets. His administration even announced that it would scrap some of its tariffs on foreign products, including beef, tomatoes, bananas and coffee.

How Trump compares to Biden on inflation

Yet the new Yahoo/YouGov poll suggests the president still has a lot of work to do on the issue. To be sure, inflation has plummeted from its 9% COVID-era peak under former President Joe Biden; by the time Trump took office in January, it was hovering around 3%. The problem is that — despite Trump claiming “we don’t have any inflation” — it remains at 3% today, with the prices of produce, coffee, clothing, housing and electricity all on the rise.

Meanwhile, Trump has imposed broad new import levies that have propelled America’s overall average tariff rate to 18% — the highest since 1934 — while raising costs for U.S. households by $1,600 to $2,600 per year, according to independent estimates.

As a result, 60% of Americans now say inflation is getting worse — matching the highest number recorded on nine Yahoo/YouGov surveys conducted during the last two years of Biden’s presidency. Only 17% say inflation is getting better.

And when those who think inflation is getting worse are asked which factor is “more responsible” for that — “events the president can’t control” or “policies the president can control” — seven out of 10 of them (the equivalent of 42% of Americans overall) say the latter. In comparison, just 33% of Americans said the same in November 2022, when Biden was president.

Meanwhile, the share of independents who say inflation is worsening and attribute that development to policies a president can control has increased even more — from 33%

in October 2022 and 47% now.

In the end, inflation itself may not be higher today than it was then. But more people think Trump is making it worse. Three years ago, 52% of Americans said Biden was not “doing enough” to address the issue; 61% now say the same about Trump. Three years ago, 35% of Americans said Biden “deserves the most blame for the current inflation”; 38% now say the same about Trump.

Weighing Trump’s economic policies

Trump’s tariffs remain broadly unpopular. By a two-to-one margin, most Americans continue to say the new import taxes are having more of a negative (52%) rather than positive (26%) effect on the U.S. economy in the short term. And two thirds (66%) mostly agree with the statement that the recent tariffs have "increased the amount I pay for goods and services,” far more than the number who agree with the president’s arguments in favor of implementing them: that they “have raised trillions of dollars in revenue for the U.S. government” (39%); that they have “forced other countries to treat the U.S. more fairly” (40%); and that they have “forced companies to make things in America rather than elsewhere (47%).

Unsurprisingly, then, nearly all Americans with an opinion (77% of Americans overall) approve of the Trump administration's recent decision to remove some of its tariffs on beef and other items. Only 7% disapprove; the rest (16%) are not sure. And just 9% of Americans want to see “all” of the recent tariffs “continue,” while more than three-quarters would prefer to see “all” (38%) or “some” (38%) of them removed.

When it comes to Trump’s recent affordability proposals, only the idea of "using the revenue raised by the recent tariffs to send $2,000 rebate checks” garners majority support (58%). Republicans are the most supportive (68%), but most Democrats (55%) and independents (52%) also favor the checks.

In contrast, the new Yahoo/YouGov survey finds little enthusiasm for 50-year mortgages that "would lower monthly payments by spreading them out over two additional decades, but would also roughly double the amount of interest borrowers pay over the course of the loan." After reading that description, just 19% of Americans say they favor the idea; 56% say they oppose it. And only 8% say they would ever choose to get a 50-year mortgage themselves.

Trump’s proposal for avoiding a coming spike in health insurance premiums — putting money “into an account for people where the people buy their own health insurance” — doesn’t fare much better. After reading that subsidies that "help make health care coverage more affordable for roughly 20 millions Americans who purchase insurance though an Obamacare (ACA) marketplace" will “expire at the end of the year” — a development that will “increase premiums by 114%, on average” — more than twice as many Americans (55%) say Congress should extend the subsidies than not extend them (23%).

Similarly, when offered a choice, far more Americans (49%) prefer to "extend the existing subsidies to keep premiums from increasing, even if it means some people would have to continue buying insurance through the ACA marketplaces," rather than "give people a fixed sum of money to shop for health insurance, even if it means many people will wind up with less comprehensive coverage and higher deductibles" (22%).

Even support for $2,000 tariff rebate checks comes with a caveat. When asked to consider other uses for tariff revenue, only 41% of Americans choose checks; combined, a greater number select either “paying down the national debt” (27%) or “funding government programs” (18%). And when told how much the tariffs are costing each U.S. household — again, “$1,600 to $2,600 per year, according to independent estimates" — Americans are divided on the best way to “put some of that money back into people’s pockets,” with 43% preferring rebate checks and 42% preferring to just “remove the tariffs to lower prices.”

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The Yahoo survey was conducted by YouGov using a nationally representative sample of 1,684 U.S. adults interviewed online from Nov. 21 to Nov. 24, 2025. The sample was weighted according to gender, age, race, education, 2024 election turnout and presidential vote, party identification and current voter registration status. Demographic weighting targets come from the 2019 American Community Survey. Party identification is weighted to the estimated distribution at the time of the election (31% Democratic, 32% Republican). Respondents were selected from YouGov’s opt-in panel to be representative of all U.S. adults. The margin of error is approximately 3%.