President Joe Biden’s job approval has fallen below 40 percent in polling averages, an ominous sign as his party fights to keep control of Congress. According to RealClearPolitics, Biden’s average job approval rating was just 38.9 percent, while 54.7 percent of Americans disapprove. A polling aggregator that uses a different methodology, FiveThirtyEight, found that 39.7 percent of Americans approved of the president and 53.7 percent disapproved. 

Both are indicators of deep problems for the administration, as Biden is now the most unpopular president in modern American history at this stage of his tenure. At this point in his presidency, Donald Trump received positive marks from 43.6 percent of voters and negative marks from 51.4 percent, according to the RealClearPolitics average. This has not gone unnoticed by Biden, who Politico reported was “seething” about his standing being worse than his predecessor.

Americans’ dissatisfaction with the president is likely tied to their negative assessments of his economic record. The RealClearPolitics average of Biden’s job approval on the economy is substantially lower than his overall numbers, with just 34 percent of Americans approving and six in 10 disapproving. A CNN poll from May found that 55 percent of Americans thought that Biden’s policies had hurt the economy, 26 percent believed his policies had no effect, and only 19 percent said that they had improved the economy. Illustrating the famous James Carville maxim “It’s the economy, stupid,” a recent NBC poll found that the two issues most prioritized by voters were “the cost of living” and “jobs and the economy.”

The president’s poor numbers are a reflection of the record levels of inflation that are driving up the cost of goods and services. Over the last year alone, inflation rose 8.6 percent, a 40-year high. While price increases are affecting the whole economy, their effect on gas prices has become particularly prominent after the national average cost of a gallon of gas exceeded $5 recently. Economic woes have economists worrying about a recession; the Financial Times found that over two-thirds of experts in the field predicted that the U.S. economy will enter a recession in 2023.

For his part, Biden has said that inflation could last “for a while,” despite characterizing the problem as “transitory” last year. He further said there’s “nothing he can do” to bring down the costs of gas and food.