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49%
A new Gallup poll finds that across 46 countries and territories, median approval of U.S. leadership stood at 49% under President Biden.
This rating is up from the 30% median approval at the end of Donald Trump’s presidency and matches the rating during former President Barack Obama’s first year in office in 2009.
13
Punchbowl News: “Party leaders must make progress on their stalled reconciliation package — the problem is bigger than just Sens. Joe Manchin (D-WV) and Kyrsten Sinema (D-AZ) — with the clock ticking on the Oct. 31 deadline for voting on the $1 trillion bipartisan infrastructure bill. It is just 13 days away.”
38%
A new Pew Research survey finds that Americans who relied most on former President Donald Trump and the White House coronavirus task force for Covid-19 news in the early days of the pandemic are now among those least likely to have been vaccinated against the virus.
This reinforces criticism of the news media for running Trump’s briefings live.
44% to 53%
A new Pew Research poll finds President Biden’s approval rate upside down at 44% to 53%, a sharp decline since July. “There also are signs that the public is generally becoming more pessimistic: Just 26% say they are satisfied with the way things are going in the country, down from 33% six months ago. And while views of current economic conditions remain lackluster – 26% rate them as excellent or good – expectations for the economy over the next year have become more negative than they were in the spring.”
8.2%
“The wealthiest 400 families in the United States are paying an average income tax rate of just 8.2%, according to a new analysis from the Biden administration,” CBS News reports.
3,400%
Daily Beast: “In western South Dakota’s Meade County, more than one in three COVID-19 tests are currently returning positive, and over the last three weeks, seven-day average case counts have increased by 3,400 percent. This exponential growth in cases is likely attributable to the 81st Sturgis Motorcycle Rally, which drew an estimated half a million visitors to Meade County and its environs from Aug. 6 through 15, potentially acting as a superspreader event.”
277
New York Times: “More people in Florida are catching the coronavirus, being hospitalized and dying of Covid-19 now than at any previous point in the pandemic, underscoring the perils of limiting public health measures as the Delta variant rips through the state. … This week, 227 virus deaths were being reported each day in Florida, on average, as of Tuesday, a record for the state and by far the most in the United States right now.” Washington Post: “More than 17,000 people are currently hospitalized with Covid-19 in Florida, which has the most hospitalizations for Covid-19 of any state in the country.”
100,000+
Washington Post: “There are more than 100,000 people hospitalized with covid-19 in the United States, a level not seen since Jan. 30 — when coronavirus vaccines were not widely available — as the country grapples with the delta variant’s spread.”
$2 billion
A new Peterson-KFF analysis finds the spike in hospitalizations of unvaccinated adults — which are almost all preventable — cost the U.S. health system more than $2 billion in June and July. Axios: “Those costs are ultimately shouldered by all of us, not just those who remain unvaccinated and then get severely ill. A coronavirus hospitalization costs, on average, around $20,000.”
63%
A new CBS News/YouGov poll found that 63% of Americans support removing U.S. troops from Afghanistan but just 47% approve of President Biden’s handling of it.
