It was just last month that Gallup rolled out an eye-popping poll result about economic confidence. Almost 60% of U.S. citizens said they were better off now than they were a year ago, but even more impressively, 74% said “this time next year” they would be “financially better off,” the high-water mark for the over 40 years Gallup has asked that question.
A lot can change in one month.
The way life looks today for many people would have been unthinkable even just a week or two ago. Entire sectors of the economy have effectively been shut down in order to keep people separated and to keep the spread of the novel coronavirus under control. The stock market fluctuates wildly, and the nature of this crisis does not appear to lend itself to an easy bounce back. Our current path will not be solved by unplugging the economy for just a second and then plugging it back in.
We have no idea how bad this will ultimately be, but it seems safe at least to say, it will be very bad.
As shocking and disruptive as the last month has been and as bizarre as it is now to look at poll numbers showing record-high economic optimism, there was something else lurking beneath that upbeat feeling about the economy. Nearly every other polling indicator has suggested a deeply unsettled public, worried about what’s around the next bend.
Prior to this week, people felt the economy was on the right track, but that nearly everything else was not. Even before the coronavirus pandemic took over our day-to-day lives, back when economic optimism was still at those record highs, more people felt we were on the wrong track than the right track by a 15-point margin. And while the economy had faded from people’s minds as a major pressing concern, government dysfunction had risen to take its place for three years running. People used to think the next generation would be better off, but these days by wide margins, more think today’s children will be worse off than their parents.
In focus group after focus group I have done over the last year, when I have asked people how they are feeling things are going in the country, they’ll say: worried, anxious, nervous, scared. Those same respondents, Republican and Democratic, would also say they felt the economy was going well, the stock market was good, they were planning a vacation, yes — but that you never know what’s around the corner.
Fragile is a word that came to mind a lot; people thinking we are functioning now but could break at any moment. If a crisis came, there was no confidence our leaders or institutions could handle it. Things are good for now, they’d say, but it feels like this can’t go on forever.
It’s important to realize that for many people, young and old, the memories of the last recession are still fresh. The scars are still there. People still remember what it felt like to wake up one morning and see that entire Wall Street banks had evaporated, to find the value of their home plummet, to see the half-constructed offices and apartment complexes in their communities sit unbuilt or vacant for years during the recovery. If they’re young, they remember trying to enter a job market during an economic crisis and not knowing if they’d ever be able to buy a home or live the life their parents’ generation had. If they’re older, they remember being on the verge of retirement and then watching their life savings vanish before their eyes.
So yes, it is jarring to think that just weeks ago, the public were expressing unprecedented levels of belief that next year would be better economically when we now know that we are facing a pandemic that will arrest our economic activity for months. But the bulk of the data also showed those concerns that the good times were fragile.
Fears that our systems are dysfunctional and not up to the task of tackling serious problems, worries that things were not headed in the right direction, concern that the next generation would not enjoy the same quality of life: despite the rosy economic news often touted by leaders, the public seemed to know that things were not perfect, that somewhere lurking around the corner, a crisis was waiting that would test us all.
That test is now here. We can only hope we pass.
