July 18, 2025
President Trump signed the tax and spending law, also known as “One Big Beautiful Bill,” on July 4th. The legislation extends the president’s 2017 tax cuts and introduces new tax breaks for overtime workers and elderly adults. It also includes provisions for increased national security funding, reductions to Medicaid and food assistance programs, and the elimination of certain green energy tax credits.
Overall, a majority of adults believe the bill will do more to help wealthy people. People are about twice as likely to say the bill will hurt than say that it will help people like them and middle-class Americans. A majority think the bill will harm low-income people.
Democrats are generally more likely than Republicans to say that the legislation will help the wealthy and hurt the poor and middle-class. Republicans are more likely to say the bill will help than harm middle-class Americans and people like them. They are divided on the impact for low-income Americans.
Sixty-six percent have heard or read “a lot” or “some” about the tax and spending legislation, while 34% have heard or read little or nothing about the law. In general, those who are more informed about the legislation are more likely to say the bill would benefit wealthy people and hurt middle-class and low-income people. Democrats are slightly more likely than Republicans to be informed about the law (76% vs. 67%) and to expect larger impacts on different income groups. Those who are less informed are more likely to say the legislation won’t make a difference.
The tax and spending law, projected to raise the deficit by $3.3 trillion over the next ten years, was enacted as 63% of the public believe the U.S. government spends too much.
Roughly 6 in 10 Republicans and Democrats believe the government spends too much. This marks a sharp departure from an AP-NORC poll conducted two years earlier, when, under the Biden administration, 85% of Republicans and 47% of Democrats viewed U.S. government spending as excessive.
Thirty-eight percent of adults approve of Trump’s handling of government spending, down from 46% in an AP-NORC poll conducted in March. Although Republicans are far more likely than Democrats to approve of how the president is dealing with government spending, they are slightly less supportive after the bill was signed compared with March (77% vs. 85%).
Few favor eliminating the debt ceiling. Forty-six percent either strongly or somewhat oppose removing the limit on how much the federal government can borrow. Again, this seems to be an area where Democrats and Republicans agree. Forty-five percent of Democrats and 47% of Republicans are either somewhat or strongly opposed to eliminating the debt ceiling. A third don’t have a strong opinion either way, and only 2 in 10 support it in both parties.
Tariffs, another financial strategy proposed by Trump, receive limited public support. The survey was in the field at the same time as new tariff rates and deadlines were being announced. Thirty percent of adults support the tariffs, 29% are neutral, and 41% express opposition to this policy.
Fifty-nine percent of Republicans support imposing tariffs, while 17% oppose. Among Democrats, 10% support and 69% oppose tariffs. For independents, 15% support and 36% oppose.
The nationwide poll was conducted July 10-14, 2025 using the AmeriSpeak® Panel, the probability-based panel of NORC at the University of Chicago. Online and telephone interviews using landlines and cell phones were conducted with 1,437 adults. The overall margin of sampling error is +/- 3.6 percentage points. Respondents age 18-29 were sampled at a higher rate than their proportion of the population for reasons of analysis. The overall margin of sampling error for the 386 interviews completed with respondents age 18-29 is +/- 6.6 percentage points.
- Suggested Citation: AP-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research. “Public expects the new tax and spending law will do more to benefit the wealthy, while harming middle and lower-income people.” (July 2025). https://apnorc.org/projects/public-expects-the-new-tax-and-spending-law-will-do-more-to-benefit-the-wealthy-while-harming-middle-and-lower-income-people/
