Trump’s approval dips as Americans worry about US economy, Reuters/Ipsos poll finds
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Only 35 per cent of poll respondents approved of Mr Donald Trump’s stewardship over the US economy.
PHOTO: TIERNEY L. CROSS/NYTIMES
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- Trump's approval rating dipped to 41% in a recent Reuters/Ipsos poll, down from 42% earlier in September, amid economic concerns.
- 54% believe the US economy is on the wrong track, with only 35% approving of Trump's economic stewardship and 28% on cost of living.
- While extremism is seen as the biggest problem (28%), immigration policies remain popular with 42% approval, his highest rating.
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WASHINGTON – President Donald Trump’s approval ticked slightly lower in recent weeks as Americans worried about the health of the US economy and the Republican’s ability to contain rising prices, according to a new Reuters/Ipsos poll.
The three-day poll, which closed on Sept 21, showed 41 per cent of respondents approved of Mr Trump’s performance as president, down from 42 per cent in a Sept 5 to 9 poll.
Some 54 per cent of people surveyed said the national economy was on the wrong track, up from 53 per cent in an August poll and 52 per cent in July.
Only 35 per cent of respondents approved of Mr Trump’s stewardship over the economy, and 28 per cent gave him a thumbs up on his handling of their cost of living, with both readings slightly lower than in previous polls. He returned to the White House in 2025 after promising in his election campaign in 2024 to fix the economy.
US job growth weakened sharply in August when the unemployment rate rose to a nearly four-year high at 4.3 per cent, while inflation also accelerated
Public concerns over the economy were higher earlier in the year when Mr Trump was threatening to aggressively impose tariffs on imported goods, sparking sharp declines in stock market values.
Americans split
Following the assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk
Reuters/Ipsos polls in 2025 have persistently shown that Americans view political extremism as the country’s biggest problem. Some 28 per cent of respondents in the most recent poll picked it as the top issue, compared with 16 per cent who picked the economy.
Asked which party had a better plan for tackling extremism, poll respondents were split almost evenly, with 30 per cent picking Republicans, 26 per cent saying Democrats were better and the rest saying either neither was better or they were not sure.
While the economy has weighed on Mr Trump’s approval ratings, poll respondents more often picked the Republican Party over the Democratic Party – 34 per cent to 24 per cent – for managing economic policy.
Mr Trump’s approval rating continues to be buoyed by the relative popularity of his immigration policies, which include mass arrests of people suspected of not being in the country legally. Some 42 per cent of poll respondents gave him a thumbs up on immigration, unchanged from earlier in September. It was his highest rating on any single issue in the Reuters/Ipsos poll.
The poll of 1,019 people was conducted online and nationwide. It had a margin of error of 3 percentage points. Beginning in September, Reuters/Ipsos polls have included a slight methodological change, no longer giving respondents the option to say they were “not sure” about whether they approved or disapproved of the President’s overall job performance. REUTERS
