Biden's hometown business owners slam skyrocketing inflation, say support isn't 'reciprocated'
'Here in Delaware, he's loved. But as time has gone by, we have been lacking the reciprocation,' one Wilmington business owner said of Biden
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Inflation has hit every part of the country, including in President Biden’s hometown in Delaware where business owners are lamenting the skyrocketing cost of food and other supplies.
"Here in Delaware, he's loved. But as time has gone by, we have been lacking the reciprocation," said Serena Kelley Jefferson, co-owner of Serena's Soulfood in Wilmington, Delaware, of Biden.
Jefferson said that prices have skyrocketed so much in the food industry she had to nix crab balls from her menu. Jefferson noted that she voted for Biden in 2020 and that her mother had cooked for him in his home while he served as a Delaware senator.
"The things that go up too high that we can’t have, we actually have to take them off the menu because there's just no way it can stay on a menu," Jefferson said in the video published by AFP.
Another restaurant owner in Wilmington, Gianni Esposito of Gianni’s Pizza, said the inflation hitting the country is "the worst thing that could have happened to small businesses" following 2020’s lockdowns amid the pandemic.
Democratic presidential candidate former Vice President Joe Biden speaks Friday, Nov. 6, 2020, in Wilmington, Del. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)
"And right now, after the pandemic, this was the worst thing that could have happened to small business, especially restaurants. Now, you cannot find a lot of employees. Everything you have to buy it's 30, 40, 50% more expensive," Esposito said in the video.
The Wilmington area has been the president’s home since he was 10, when his family moved from Scranton, Pennsylvania. Biden has traveled back to his home in Delaware on numerous weekends since Inauguration Day.
CONSUMER CONFIDENCE PLUNGES TO LOWEST LEVEL IN A DECADE AS INFLATION SOARS HIGHER
But a year after Election Day, consumer confidence plunged to a 10-year low this November over skyrocketing inflation and "no effective policies" being implemented to fight the increases.
"Consumer sentiment fell in early November to its lowest level in a decade due to an escalating inflation rate and the growing belief among consumers that no effective policies have yet been developed to reduce the damage from surging inflation," Richard Curtin, the University of Michigan’s Consumer Sentiment Surveys director, said in a statement this month.
"Rising prices for homes, vehicles, and durables were reported more frequently than any other time in more than half a century," Curtin added.
The inflation comes while Biden’s approval ratings plummet. He has a 37.8% approval rating and a 59% disapproval rating, according to a USA Today/Suffolk University poll released earlier this month. Forty-six percent of those surveyed said Biden has done a worse job than expected, and 64% said they don't want Biden to run for reelection.
A separate Gallup poll from October showed Biden suffered a larger approval rating drop at the start of his term than any president since World War II.
Vice President Kamala Harris, meanwhile, faces a 27.8% approval rating with 51.2% disapproval, according to the USA Today/Suffolk University poll.
Democratic presidential candidate former Vice President Joe Biden and his running mate Sen. Kamala Harris, D-Calif., arrive to speak at a news conference at Alexis Dupont High School in Wilmington, Del., Wednesday, Aug. 12, 2020. (AP Photo/Carolyn Ka … (Associated Press)
The Biden administration has juggled a handful of crises in the last year, including a border crisis, a botched withdrawal from Afghanistan, a supply chain crisis, and the pandemic.
The Biden administration did score a win earlier this month after he signed into law his $1.2 trillion infrastructure bill, which the president touted as "a monumental step forward as a nation."
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"And we’re just getting started, we did something that's been long overdue, that long has been talked about in Washington, but never actually been done," he said last week, calling it a "once in a generation investment."
The White House did not immediately respond to Fox News' request for comment on the Wilmington business owners' remarks on inflation.