According to polls by Gallup, President Joe Biden's approval rating has been stagnating around the 40-percent mark all through his second, third and into his fourth year in office. In January 2023, it stood at 41 percent. Amid still-high inflation and a stagnating economy, 82 percent of Americans said they were unhappy with the direction the country was going.
All three most recent U.S. Presidents - Joe Biden, Donald Trump and Barack Obama - saw their popularity deteriorate right at the start of their presidencies. Obama took the biggest plunge but Biden's initial drop in approval comes close. Trump started with a lower approval rating of only around 45 percent in January 2017, reached a low of 35 percent in August and was back up to 40-42 percent by mid-2018. He was, however, able to surpass his starting approval later, during his fourth year in office, something that never happened for Obama. At 37 months in office, Trump surpasses Biden's approval by 8 percentage point.
Obama's, Trump's and Biden's approval ratings in relation to the time they had been in office came pretty close to each other in their third year. Early in the fourth year, Trump's ratings picked up, hitting 49 percent in January 2022 (month 37) during impeachment hearings in the Senate and overtaking Obama's at the time. According to Gallup, Obama's approval rating was only 45 percent at the same time in January 2012, following low job creation and a feud with the Republicans about raising the debt ceiling. Biden's stood at 41 percent in January 2024 amid economic pressures, critique of his reelection campaign and dysfunction in Congress.
