This holiday season isn’t quite so merry for American shoppers as large shares are dipping into savings, scouring for bargains and feeling like the overall economy is stuck in a rut under President Donald Trump, a new AP-NORC poll finds.

The vast majority of U.S. adults say they’ve noticed higher than usual prices for groceries, electricity and holiday gifts in recent months, according to the survey from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research.

Roughly half of Americans say it’s harder than usual to afford the things they want to give as holiday gifts, and similar numbers are delaying big purchases or cutting back on nonessential purchases more than they would normally.

It's a sobering assessment for the Republican president, who returned to the White House in large part by promising to lower prices, only to find that inflation remains a threat to his popularity just as it did for Democrat Joe Biden's presidency. The poll’s findings look very similar to an AP-NORC poll from December 2022, when Biden was president and the country was grappling with higher rates of inflation. Trump's series of tariffs have added to inflationary pressures and generated anxiety about the stability of the U.S. economy, keeping prices at levels that many Americans find frustrating.

The president has insisted there is “no” inflation and the U.S. economy is booming, as he expressed frustration that the public feels differently.

Most U.S. adults, 68%, continue to say the country’s economy is “poor,” which is unchanged from December 2024, before Trump returned to the presidency.

White House officials plan to send Trump barnstorming across the country in hopes of bucking up people's faith in the economy before next year's midterm elections. But the president this week in Pennsylvania defended the price increases tied to his tariffs by suggesting that Americans should buy fewer dolls and pencils for children.

People felt similarly dismal about holiday shopping and the economy when Biden was president in 2022. Inflation had spiked to a four-decade high that summer. Three years later, inflation has eased substantially, but it's still running at 3%, a full percentage point above the Federal Reserve's target as the job market appears to have entered a deep freeze.

The survey indicates that it's the level of prices — and not just the rate of inflation — that is the point of pain for many families. Roughly 9 in 10 U.S. adults, 87%, say they've noticed higher than usual prices for groceries in the past few months, while about two-thirds say they've experienced higher prices than usual for electricity and holiday gifts. About half say they've seen higher than normal prices for gas recently.

The findings on groceries and holiday gifts are only slightly lower than in the 2022 poll, despite the slowdown from an inflation rate that hit a four-decade peak in the middle of that year.

Consumer spending has stayed resilient despite the negative sentiments about the economy.

Few people expect the situation to meaningfully improve next year — a sign that Trump has done little to instill much confidence from his mix of tariffs, income tax cuts and foreign trips to attract investments. Trump has maintained that the benefits from his policies will begin to snowball in 2026.

About 4 in 10 U.S. adults expect next year will be economically worse for the country. Roughly 3 in 10 say conditions won’t change much. Only about 2 in 10 think things will get better, with Republicans being more optimistic.

The belief that things will get better has slipped from last year, when about 4 in 10 said that 2025 would be better than 2024.