Rising prices take toll on Americans' wallets — and Biden's numbers — CBS News Poll

This year may have seen unemployment drop, stocks rise, and continued — albeit slowing — growth, but those are all big-picture, "macro" numbers for the U.S. economy. On the ground, for Americans staring at spiraling digits on gas pumps and grocery registers, the numbers they're watching are rising prices. And that, in turn, leads to poll numbers with sharply negative ratings for the U.S. economy, with two-thirds calling it bad; these are the worst numbers since the depths of the pandemic in the summer of 2020. 

Meanwhile, in Washington, although President Biden was able to tout the passage of a bipartisan infrastructure bill that draws majority backing from Americans, it is inflation and the economy that are on the minds of Americans as the main measures of what they say they're using to judge him right now.

Americans know why inflation is happening, and it's not all political: the biggest majority cite supply issues after the pandemic as the cause. Smaller majorities blame labor shortages and higher consumer demand since the pandemic. Republicans, especially, also cast some blame on the COVID relief bill passed by Congress earlier this year. But as with many problems that present themselves, Americans nonetheless evaluate a president on how well it's addressed once it happens.