The US economy is "clearly weak" under the current US president Joe Biden, ex-World Bank chief David Malpass has claimed.
This comes as the November election draws nearer and the support for the US president has been dwindling since his disastrous debate with former president Trump last month.
Inflation began to surge early in his term and has proved to be one of the biggest thorns in Biden's side.
Inflation has eased in recent months, but prices on most goods are still higher than they were in the spring of 2021.
David Malpass said that the economy is "weak"
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Explaining why this will be an important factor in the election, the ex-World Bank chief explained: "The economics is really important as candidates contend with each other.
"President Trump obviously will be saying that the economy didn't do well under Biden, and Biden will claim that it did do well.
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"The numbers, I think, make it clear that the economy is growing pretty slowly, that incomes haven't gone up as much as inflation, though in more recent months inflation has been slowing down.
"So there's progress to be being made. But the reality is there was this big surge in prices that people are feeling across the country.
"So I think that is the election issue there."
When asked how he feels Biden is doing with the economy he said: "It is clearly weak. The first quarter growth was only 1.4 per cent.
Joe Biden is the president of the US Reuters"So it's not enough to lift people in terms of their real incomes, in terms of the job creation.
"One of the weak parts of the economy is small businesses. They are suffering under the very high interest rates that are being imposed, but also the demand within the economy is government-generated demand.
"That's hard to trickle down to small businesses. So you have this economy that's running primarily to benefit the elite and you see the big companies and their stock prices doing well.
"But that leaves a lot of people disappointed in the economy. Of concern to me is that the outlook is weak.
"See the Congressional Budget Office, CBO does forecasts and their forecasts and their forecasts show that the economy is expected to remain slow over the next ten years.
"That's really problematic for people. That means they won't get ahead."