Americans are in general agreement that the nation’s economy is improving, but not their own personal situation, a depressing reality that the administration can’t shake the country out of no matter what it does.
A big reason: They just don’t believe the president and his team’s boasting about the economy, with 52 percent in a new poll believing that there are more people unemployed than the president says.
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The latest Economist/YouGov poll found that the “positive assessment has yet to become part of most Americans daily conversations about the economy. And Americans are far more likely to credit themselves and American business — and not the president or Congress — for whatever economic improvement there has been.”
For example, while majorities believe that unemployment is improving and the economy is getting better, they don’t credit Washington. Business first, and consumers second, get the credit. President Obama and Congress follow in the poll.
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The poll offers two reasons why the public is slow to buy into the improvement, and give Obama the credit. First, it says Americans have a negative attitude about the economy. Second, they just don’t believe the government.
“First, when Americans talk about the economy or its effect on them, they tend to paint a more negative than positive picture of how things are. A third say their conversations with friends and family about the economy are mostly negative; just 19 percent have mostly positive discussions. This is personal: only one in four Americans think they are personally better off today than they were when Barack Obama took office in 2009. A third say they are worse off. While those responses may reflect more than the state of the economy, a direct question about whether the respondent’s family financial status is better or worse than it was one year ago indicates that as many believe they are worse off as better off,” said the poll analysis.
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And second, “Many Americans — especially Republicans — simply don’t believe the data. Only one in four think the unemployment figures are accurate. More than half think there are more people unemployed than the Bureau of Labor Statistics figures say there are,” it added.
Paul Bedard, the Washington Examiner’s “Washington Secrets” columnist, can be contacted at [email protected].
