Most Americans Dissatisfied With US Government Regulation

There’s more bad news for the Biden administration.

On the heels of a poll that put the president’s approval rating at the lowest level of his presidency, Americans’ satisfaction with the federal government’s regulation of commerce has sunk to 28%, according to a Gallup survey released Monday (Feb. 7).

U.S. consumer satisfaction with government regulation of commerce has fallen 8 percentage points to 28%, the lowest point since 2016 when Gallup first began tracking this measure.

At 60%, dissatisfaction was at a record high; 29% of Americans said they prefer less government regulation; 18% favor more; and 13% are dissatisfied but say federal regs should stay the same.

Gallup’s “Mood of the Nation” poll was conducted from Jan. 3 through 16 and tracks the nation’s satisfaction with more than two dozen aspects of U.S. policy.

The poll’s latest findings coincide with Gallup’s survey in September that showed a rise in Americans who said there is too much government regulation of commerce. It comes as a pandemic-weary public is largely dissatisfied with the state of the union.

During the Trump presidency, 4 in 10 Americans said they were satisfied with government regulation of the business sector, up slightly from the 32% found during President Barack Obama’s final year in office in 2016.

When Biden took office in 2021, his administration was focused on reversing the policies of his predecessor. In addition, COVID-19 and its economic impacts have been a significant focus of Biden's regulatory actions thus far, researchers found.

The White House had some unexpected good news on Friday (Feb. 4) when anticipation of gloomy jobs report was upended as the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported employment rose by 467,000 in January, and the unemployment rate was flat at 4.0%.

See also: Employers Add 467K Jobs Despite Omicron’s Shadow

By way of comparison, before the pandemic hit, in February 2020 the unemployment rate was 3.5%, and the number of people unemployed stood at 5.7 million.