“The whole country is sinking, and it is people like us who feel it the most,” said Emad Mohammed, who reupholsters chairs in the poor Cairo neighborhood of Deir al-Malak. He said that all of his costs had risen and that drivers charged more for deliveries because buying gas means waiting in hourlong lines.

All of this has left Mr. Morsi with few allies beyond the Muslim Brotherhood. This week the country’s top Muslim cleric rebuffed those who called anti-Morsi protests un-Islamic and declared it religiously permissible to protest peacefully against one’s leaders, and the patriarch of Egypt’s Coptic Church publicly criticized Mr. Morsi’s performance.

And the situation may soon grow even worse for the president. Egypt’s disparate and disorganized opposition is calling for mass protests on June 30. Many worry that demonstrations could inflame the country’s intensely polarized politics and ignite new unrest, further weakening the nation.

Mr. Morsi and his allies argue that he still has electoral legitimacy and that the opposition has rebuffed his efforts to reach out, leaving him no choice but to rely on Brotherhood members for support and top posts. They also say post-revolution difficulties are no surprise.

“When it comes to our current performance, we had hoped to do better, but the challenges are great and we believe that nobody could have performed better,” said Murad Ali, a spokesman for Mr. Morsi’s Freedom and Justice Party.