NBC News poll: Majority of voters believe U.S. is currently in recession

A recent NBC News poll showed that most registered voters believe the economy has already entered into a recession and that the recently signed Inflation Reduction Act will do have minimal effect to combat inflation. 

The survey found that 68% of those polled believe the economy is currently in a recession while 27% believed it has yet to enter a recession. It also showed that 35% of Americans believe the Inflation Reduction Act will have a negative impact on the economy while 36% believe it will not make any difference.

Nearly half of those polled (47%) said they would prefer a Republican candidate for Congress compared to 45% who said they would select a Democrat candidate.

The legislation was greeted with severe criticism over the decision to include an IRS provision that would allegedly spend roughly $80 billion to fund the hiring of 87,000 new agents across the country – though the Associated Press previously reported that this claim is “misleading.”

Fox News reports that the economy recently entered into a technical recession after the gross domestic product (GDP) contracted for a second consecutive quarter from April-June. The most common definition of a recession is 2 consecutive quarters of negative GDP growth.

According to the Consumer Price Index, inflation hit 9.1% in June, which is a 40-year record high, before reducing slightly to 8.5% in July.

The NBC News survey was carried out between Aug. 12th and August 16th, 2022, with a margin of error of plus or minus 3.10 percentage points.