It’s NOT the economy when people are dying: accountability for household economic and health outcomes during the pandemic

ABSTRACT Economic voting models usually assume that the economy is usually salient to the public, especially during a recession, yet the public’s attention to the economy is likely to wane when other, more pressing issues are salient. This analysis tests whether health outcomes during the pandemic pushed the economy off the public’s agenda. Cross-sectional survey data from July 2020 show that individuals who experienced a personal economic setback during the first few months of the pandemic did not significantly differ in their evaluations of President Trump from those whose finances had not been similarly affected. Instead, presidential approval was lower among those who had gotten sick/knew someone who had gotten sick or who were afraid of getting sick. Time series analyses confirm the economy’s importance has diminished; President Trump’s approval ratings were less strongly connected to economic outcomes in the post-pandemic period than they were in the first three years he was in office. In the context of a health emergency, the public seems to value minimizing health threats, not limiting the economic fallout from the pandemic and thus the dynamics underlying presidential approval during the pandemic differ from normal times and previous crises.