While President Joe Biden has long struggled with low popularity numbers, the president's approval ratings seem to have all but collapsed in recent months. 

In an article published this week, Yahoo! News contributor Andrew Romano pointed to a poll aggregator maintained by the website FiveThirtyEight.

Only Jimmy Carter had worse numbers at this point in his presidency

It found that Biden is now the second most unpopular White House occupant in modern history, with only Jimmy Carter being less popular at this point in his presidency.

As of Friday, Biden's aggregate approval rating stood at just 41% whereas his disapproval rating was 53%. That put him nearly a point behind former President Donald Trump in late July of 2019.

Romano noted that some observers believe the president's woes are closely tied to America's ongoing problems with inflation.

That view was recently expressed by New York magazine Eric Levitz, who wrote, "One possibility is that, after enjoying largely stable prices for decades, Americans simply have little tolerance for inflation."

Biden claimed to have "ended cancer"

"Sure, their wages may have grown faster than prices since February 2020. But voters might be inclined to attribute their income gains to their own efforts, while blaming rising prices on the government’s mismanagement," he continued.

"They still have not adjusted psychologically to the jump in their grocery bills, and are irked each time they see the receipt and remember what things used to cost when Donald Trump was still president," Levitz stressed.

Romano also suggested that part of the problem could lay with Biden's advanced age and declining cognitive abilities. Yet another example of the phenomenon came on Tuesday when the president suggested during a White House event that his administration has "ended cancer as we know."

HEAD-SCRATCHER: President Biden declares his administration has "ended cancer as we know it." The backlash was fast and furious. pic.twitter.com/CDigfqbmKp

— Fox News (@FoxNews) July 25, 2023

Poll: Forty-three percent of Democrats think Biden is too old

That statement resulted in mockery on social media, including from conservative commentator Greg Price, who tweeted, "The dementia is so bad that now he thinks he cured cancer."

The dementia is so bad that now he thinks he cured cancer.

— Greg Price (@greg_price11) July 25, 2023

Meanwhile, Newsweek cited a Harvard CPAS/Harris Poll carried out between July 18 to and July 20 which found that 43% of Democrats think Mr. Biden is too old to be president.

This figure represented an eight-point increase since June and a 10-point jump from when the same question was asked in May.