Americans suffer big fall in optimism ratings

Americans suffer big fall in optimism ratings
By Holly Yeager in Washington
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2006
Published: September 15 2006 03:00 | Last updated: September 15 2006 03:00


That cheery American optimism seems to have hit a rough patch.

Just under half of US adults rate the quality of the life they expect to be leading five years from now higher than their current quality of life, according to a poll released yesterday by the Pew Research Center. The finding contrasts with 61 per cent four years ago, marking the sharpest downturn in personal optimism in more than 40 years.

"Historically, a part of America's power and charm is that we are an optimistic people," said Paul Taylor ofPew. "And we are still an optimistic people, but we are a little less optimistic than we were a few years ago."

Much of the fall could be explained by the high levels of optimism brought on by the economic boom of the 1990s, Mr Taylor said. "This was a moment when people were feeling awfully good about where they had come from and where they were going."

Since then, individual feelings of optimism have declined, as have general levels of satisfaction with the state of country, from the mid- to high-50 per cent range in the late 1990s, to the low 30 per cent range today.

The group based its findings on a "ladder of life" survey in which respondents are first asked to give a numerical rating to their current quality of life, and then to rate the past and the future on the same scale.

Four years ago, Pew posed the same questions in 44 countries and found the USranked in the middle compared with other countries.

Americans were more inclined to say they had made progress than were people in Europe, the Middle East, and most of the countries surveyed in Asia, Latin America and Africa. When asked to rate their futures, Americans were more optimistic than most of Europe, the Middle East and Latin America, but less optimistic than most of Africa and Asia.

Yesterday's results show a widening gap between how rich and poor judge their personal progress, which correlates with widening income inequality and declining mobility in the US.

In 2002, 45 per cent of those with the lowest income saw themselves as having made progress, compared with 57 per cent of those in the highest income bracket. This year, the gap grew to 20 points, with just 39 per cent in the lowest bracket saying they had made progress.