The increasingly expensive US life is catching up with Trump. How low the popularity of the American president has fallen

President Donald Trump's approval rating has fallen in recent days to the lowest level since his second term in office, amid growing dissatisfaction among Americans with how the White House leader is handling the cost of living, a new Reuters/Ipsos poll shows.

The three-day poll, which ended Sunday, showed 40 percent of Americans approve of the Republican leader's performance, compared with 42 percent in the Oct. 15-20 Reuters/Ipsos poll.

Trump's approval rating has fluctuated by a percentage point or two from its current level in every Reuters/Ipsos poll since mid-May. The percentage of people who say they disapprove of the US president's performance rose from 52 percent in the May 16-18 poll to 57 percent in the latest poll.

Trump won last year's election on a promise to fight rising inflation that had dented the popularity of his predecessor, Democrat Joe Biden. But Americans give Trump extremely low marks for how he has handled the costs weighing on American households, with 63 percent of the population disapproving of how he is handling the issue of the rising cost of living. That percentage, 63 percent, is up from 58 percent earlier this month and more than double the percentage who think it has done a good job on the cost of living.

The pace of inflation rose slightly after Trump took office in January, even as the labor market eased, prompting the country's central bank (the Federal Reserve, the Fed) to cut interest rates.

Americans' reaction to the “shutdown”

The survey results suggest that many Americans are only moderately concerned about the federal government's “shutdown,” the second-longest in U.S. history, affecting hundreds of thousands of federal employees.

About 29 percent of people surveyed in the poll said they didn't care or were happy about the government shutdown, while 20 percent said they were angry. About 50% said they were frustrated. Most respondents said the government shutdown had little or no impact on their lives.

While Trump's Republicans hold majorities in both houses of the US Congress, Democrats have blocked spending bills in the Senate, vowing to remain in place until Republicans agree to extend health insurance subsidies that expire at the end of the year.

In principle, the position of the Democratic Party appears to enjoy significant support. About 73 percent of Americans polled want insurance subsidies to continue despite arguments that they will increase the federal budget deficit, a result similar to that of a poll conducted earlier this month.

The survey, which was conducted online, surveyed 1,018 American adults across the country, and its results on the views of all Americans had a margin of error of 3 percentage points. The margin of error for opinions of Republicans and Democrats was 6 percentage points.