The supply crisis, prompted in part by the global COVID-19 pandemic, not just threatens to dampen U.S. spending at a critical time it further poses a political risk for President Joe Biden.
The latest Reuters/Ipsos survey reveals that the economy is the most important issue for Democrats and Republicans alike.
The White House has been attempting to tackle inflation-inducing supply bottlenecks of everything from meat to semiconductors and created a task force in June that meets weekly and named a "bottleneck" czar to push private-sector companies to ease snarls.
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In August, the White House tapped John Porcari, a veteran transportation official who served in the Obama administration as a new "envoy" to the country's ports, though he's known as the bottleneck czar.
Biden himself intends to meet with top executives from retail giants Wal-Mart Inc and Home Depot Inc and with unions and other stakeholders on Wednesday to address attempts to relieve transportation bottlenecks before passing a speech on the topic.
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Supply chain woes are weighing on retail and transportation companies, which recently issued a series of downbeat earnings outlooks. In the meantime, the Federal Reserve last month prophesied a 2021 inflation rate of 4.2%, well above its 2% target.
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White House officials said that American consumers, unused to empty store shelves, may need to be resilient, calm, and patient.
"There will be things that people can't get," a senior White House official told Reuters, when asked regarding holiday shopping.
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"At the same time, a lot of these goods are hopefully substitutable by other things. ... I don't think there's any real reason to be panicked, but we all feel the frustration and there's a certain need for patience to help get through a relatively short period of time."
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Inflation is eating into wages. Labor Department data reveals that Americans made 0.9% less per hour on average in August than they did one year before.
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The White House argues inflation is a sign that their choice to provide historic assistance to small businesses and households worked through $1.9 trillion in COVID-19 relief funding.
U.S. consumer demand stayed strong, outpacing global competitors, and the Biden administration expects the overall economy to rise at 7.1%, as inflation reaches its highest levels since the 1980s.
"We recognize that it has pinched families who are trying to get back to some semblance of normalcy as we move into the later stages of the pandemic," announced a second senior White House official.
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