Analysis: Biden finds inflation overshadows strong economy

President Joe Biden is paying a steep price for high inflation — a problem that festered during his first year in office instead of fading away as he suggested it would.

His $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief package, enacted in March, drove what will probably be the fastest economic growth since 1984 and pulled the unemployment rate down to 3.9% at a quicker pace than experts predicted.

But after unprecedented government interventions and supply chain problems, inflation is running at a nearly 40-year high of 7%. And that has soured Americans' feelings about the president. It's left Biden trying to retrofit a policy agenda about winning the future into one that can fix inflation, a problem that did not exist when he took office.

The mix of a strong economy and high inflation has created a paradox for his presidency: Most U.S. households feel confident about their own finances, yet they’re worried about the state of the national economy in ways that have been a drag on Biden’s popularity.

“We need to get inflation under control,” Biden acknowledged at a news conference Wednesday wrapping up his first year. He allowed that “it's going to be painful for a lot of people in the meantime.”

There is a clear contradiction in people believing that they're doing well but that the economy is doing poorly. White House officials are now trying to reconcile this paradox, as Biden's future may depend on making people feel good about not just their bank accounts but also the broader economy.

Metrics like Langer Associates' Consumer Comfort Index encapsulate the problem. It shows a worsening gap between people's optimism about their own situations and their pessimism about the national economy and the climate for buying goods.

A December poll from the AP-NORC Center for Public Affairs...