Americans are feeling better about the economy as President Obama prepares to deliver his State of the Union address Tuesday night.
Forty-one percent of U.S. respondents said they are satisfied about the state of the economy in a poll conducted by Gallup in early January and released Monday.
While still a minority, the number of people with a positive view of the economy is up sharply from the same week last year, when it was just 28 percent.
The improvement in the Gallup poll mirrors recent results of measures of consumer sentiment such as the one conducted by the University of Michigan. That index has been at the highest levels since the financial crisis in recent weeks.
Gallup’s poll published on Monday shows improvement in Americans’ view of overall quality of life and the state of opportunity to get ahead. Over the past year, the U.S. labor market has brightened considerably, with the unemployment rate falling by over a percentage point, while output growth has accelerated.
Perceptions of race relations, however, deteriorated over 2014. Just 30 percent of respondents told Gallup they were satisfied or very satisfied with race relations in the U.S., down from 55 percent last year.
Americans had generally favorable views about race relations throughout Obama’s presidency up until 2014, when controversies involving police treatment of African-Americans drew widespread media attention.
While Americans are feeling better about the economy, President Obama’s job approval has been slow to improve over the past year. His net approval rating has tightened in recent weeks to near parity between those approving and disapproving, in Gallup’s daily tracking poll, but other indicators show that he continues to be unpopular. More than 51 percent disapprove of his management of the economy, according to the RealClearPolitics average of polls, while just 44 percent approve.
